UC-NRLF 


B    4    D3T    4Sfi 


THE 

ELIZABETHAN   TRANSLATIONS 

OF 

SENECA'S    TRAGEDIES 


E.    M.    SPEARING 

Fellow  of   Netonham  College,   Cambridge 


CAMBRIDGE : 

W.    HEFPER    &    SONS    LTD. 
1912 


Two  Shillings  net. 


ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS     OF 
SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES 


LONDON    AGENTS: 
SIMPKIN,    MARSHALL,    &    CO.,    LTD. 


THE 

ELIZABETHAN    TRANSLATIONS 

OF 

SENECA'S    TRAGEDIES 


E.    M.    SPEARING 

Fellow  of  Newnham  College,  Cambridge 


$ 


-    : 
CAMBRIDGE  : 

W.    HEFFER    &    SONS    LTD. 
1912 


PRINTED    BV 
W.    HEFFER   AND   SONS   LTD. 
101    HILLS    ROAD,    CAMBRIDGE. 


lus 


5 


CONTENTS 


Introduction. 

I.  Seneca's     Tragedies     and     the     Elizabethan 

Drama. 

II.  Heywood's    Troas,    Thyestes,    and    Hercules 


ERRATA. 

p.  11,  line  1,  for  wrotigh  read  wrought. 

p.  52,    ,,   23,  for  vy  read  vp. 

p.  71,    ,,    7,  for  fauours  [?  savours]  read  sauours. 

p.  73,    ,,    30,  for  hoci  read  hoei. 

p.  75,    ,,    3,  for  N.E.  read  il/.£. 


Hercules 


e  Tragedies. 


VIII.  Grammar. 
IX.    Vocabulary. 
Bibliography. 


255323 


tus 


•5 

CONTENTS 


Introduction. 


I.  Seneca's     Tragedies     and     the     Elizabethan 

Drama. 

II.  Heywood's    Troas,     Thyestes,    and    Hercules 

Furens. 

III.  Neville's  CEdipus. 

IV.  Studley's      Agamemnon,      Medea,     Hercules 

OEJtceus,   and  Hippolytus. 

V.     Nuce's  Octavia. 

VI.    Newton's  TJiebais,  and  the  Tenne  Tragedies. 
VII.  Metre  of  the  Translations. 
VIII.  Grammar. 
IX.    Vocabulary. 
Bibliography. 


255323 


INTRODUCTION 

So  much  attention  has  been  directed  of  recent 
years  to  the  influence  of  Seneca's  tragedies  on  the 
Elizabethan  drama  by  such  works  as  Fischer's  Kunst- 
entivicklung  cler  englischen  Tragodie  and  Cunliffe's 
Influence  of  Seneca  on  Elizabethan  Tragedy,  that  it 
is  somewhat  surprising  that  the  Elizabethan  trans- 
lations of  Seneca  have  remained  in  comparative 
neglect. 

One  of  the  reasons  for  this  neglect  has  doubtless 
been  the  difficulty  of  access  to  the  original  editions 
and  the  la«k-i5f"'aiTy""^atisfactory  modern  reprint. 
The  first  editions  of  the  separate  translations  are 
extremely  rare,  and  in  some  cases  only  one  copy — 
that  in  the  British  Museum — is  known  to  exist. 
The  1581  edition  of  the  collected  plays  is  also  scarce. 
At  present  only  one  modern  edition  exists,  and  that 
not  an  altogether  trustworthy  one,  viz.  the  Spenser 
Society's  reprint  (1887)  of  the  edition  of  1581.  This 
is  now  out  of  print,  and  can  only  be  obtained  with 
difficulty.  Professor  W.  Ban&  of  Louvain,  has,  how- 
ever, announced  that  a  reprint  of  the  first  editions 
of  the  translations  by  Jasper  Heywood  and  John 
Studley  will  shortly  appear  in  his  series  Materialmen 
zur  Kunde  des  dlteren  englischen  Dramas,  and  this 
should  do  much  to  facilitate  the  study  of  these  plays. 

This  difficulty  in  consulting  the  original  editions 
has  rendered  most  of  the  work  done  on  the  subject 
very  unsatisfactory.  Thus  the  Spenser  Society  were 
content   merely  to   reprint,   as   an   introduction    to 


J 


INTRODUCTION. 

their  edition,  Warton's  account  of  the  translations 
in  his  History  of  English,  Poetry,  now  more  than  a 
hundred  years  old.  The  articles  on  the  various 
translators  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography 
contain  much  valuable  information,  but  are  not 
always  reliable.  Thus  the  article  on  Studley  states 
that  no  copy  of  the  original  edition  of  his  Medea  is 
extant,  whereas  one  is  to  be  found  in  the  British 
Museum,  and  that  on  Nuce  gives  1561  as  the  date 
both  of  Studley's  Agamemnon  and  Nuce's  Octavia, 
though  the  former  was  certainly,  and  the  latter 
probably,  produced  in  1566. 

In  1909  there  appeared  a  German  dissertation  on 
the  subject,  Die  englischen  Seneca-TJebersetzer  des 
16.  Jahrhunderts,  by  E.  Jockers,  Ph.D.  Strassburg. 
It  treats  very  fully  the  relation  of  the  separate 
translations  to  their  original,  and  contains  a  careful 
analysis  of  the  peculiarities  of  style  of  the  five 
translators,  but  its  value  is  lessened  by  its  failure  to 
discriminate  between  the  early  editions  and  the 
Tenne  Tragedies  of  1581.  This  mistake  is  not  of 
great  importance  in  the  case  of  Heywood,  Studley, 
and  Nuce,  since  the  1581  edition  is  practically  a 
reprint  of  the  earlier  editions,  though  even  in  their 
case  collation  with  the  original  text  would  have 
removed  certain  difficulties  which  confronted  Dr. 
Jockers.1  In  the  case  of  Neville's  CEdipus,  however, 
this  mistake  vitiates  the  whole  of  Dr.  Jockers'  treat- 
ment, as  the  text  of  1581  differs  in  almost  every  line 
from  that  of  1563. 

Dr.  Jockers'  account  of  the  lives  of  the  translators 
and  the  dates  of  their  work  is  also  untrustworthy, 

l  e.g.  on  pp.  84,  85,  Jockers  expends  several  lines  in  proposing 
the  emendation  Phebe  for  Thebe  (Ag.,  Tenne  Trag.,  f.  146,  1.  23),  the 
reading  which  actually  occurs  in  the  edition  of  1566. 


INTRODUCTION. 

and  shows  too  much  reliance  on  the  authority  of 
Warton,  and  of  the  Dictionary  of  National  Bio- 
grapJiy.1  Moreover,  the  value  of  his  quotations  from 
the  Tenne  Tragedies  of  1581  is  considerably  lessened 
by  the  misprints  which  occur  on  almost  every  page.2 

The  greater  part  of  the  material  in  this  volume 
had  been  collected  before  Dr.  Jockers'  dissertation 
appeared,  and  after  reading  the  latter  I  felt  that 
there  was  still  room  for  another  treatise  on  the  sub- 
ject which  should  pursue  a  somewhat  different  line 
of  treatment,  and  should  be  based  on  a  careful  study, 
not  of  a  reprint,  but  of  the  original  editions.  At  the 
same  time  I  wish  to  acknowledge  gratefully  the  help 
which  Dr.  Jockers  has  afforded  to  all  future  students 
of  the  translations  by  his  exhaustive  treatment  of 
their  relation  to  the  Latin  originals. 

My  best  thanks  are  due  to  Professor  P.  G.  Thomas, 
of  Bedford  College,  London,  to  whose  kindness  I  am 
greatly  indebted,  and  to  Miss  M.  Steele  Smith,  of 
Newnham  College,  Cambridge,  who  first  brought  the 
subject  before  my  notice.  I  owe  much  to  the  unfail- 
ing kindness  of  Dr.  W.  W.  Greg,  of  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge,  who  generously  lent  me  his  copy  of  .the 
1581  edition,  and  has  given  me  valuable  help  and 
advice.  I  wish  also  to  take  this  opportunity  of 
thanking  Dr.  J.  N.  Keynes,  Registrary  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Cambridge  ;  Mr.  Aldis  Wright,  Vice-Master  of 

i  e.g.  on  p.  77  he  repeats  the  incorrect  assertion  of  the  D.N.B. 
that  no  copy  is  extant  of  the  1566  edition  of  Studley's  Medea. 
Again  on  p.  76  he  states  :  "  John  Studley  wurde  um  das  Jahr  1545 
geboren.  In  der  Schule  von  Westminster  erzogen,  trat  er  mit 
ungefiihr  16  Jahren  in  das  Trinity  College  in  Cambridge  ein," 
though  the  Register  of  Cambridge  University  shows  that  Studley 
matriculated  12  May,  1563. 

2  e.g.  on  pp.  93,  94,  the  following  misprints  occur  in  quotations 
from  the  Tenne  Tragedies : — Glance  for  Glance  (p.  93,  1.  5),  te  for 
the  (1.  9),  trancling  for  trancling  (1.  27),  did  for  stack  (p.  94,  1.  8), 
spayse  for  paijse  (1.  31),  craning  for  cramming  (1.  33). 


INTRODUCTION. 

Trinity  College,  Cambridge ;  Dr.  Henry  Bradley,  of 
Oxford,  and  others  who  have  helped  nie  in  my  in- 
vestigations. 

My  thanks  are  due  also  to  the  Syndics  of  the 
Cambridge  University  Press  for  permission  to  re- 
publish certain  paragraphs  of  my  article  on  this 
subject  which  appeared  in  the  Modern  Language 
Review  for  July  1909 ;  and  to  Professor  W.  Bang,  of 
Louvain,  for  permission  to  use  material  forming 
part  of  the  introduction  which  I  have  prepared 
for  the  reprint  of  Studley's  translations  in  his 
Materialmen. 


NOTE. 

The  system  of  reference  employed  throughout  this  volume 
is  a  double  one.  When  separate  editions  of  the  translations  exist, 
reference  is  made  both  to  the  first  edition  and  to  the  Tenne 
Tragedies,  the  source  from  which  the  exact  words  of  the  quotation 
are  taken  being  mentioned  first.  All  variants  of  any  importance 
in  the  other  text  are  inserted  in  square  brackets.  Owing  to  the 
lack  of  foliation  or  pagination  in  several  of  the  separate  editions, 
reference  is  made  in  their  case  to  the  signature.  References  to 
the  Tenne  Tragedies  are  to  the  folio  and  line.  When  no  separate 
edition  is  extant,  the  reference  to  the  Tenne  Tragedies  is  preceded 
by  the  title  of  the  play,  unless  this  has  already  been  made  clear 
by  the  context. 


SENECA'S  TRAGEDIES  AND  THE 
ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  the  popularity  of  Seneca's 
tragedies  was  immense.  To  English  dramatists, 
struggling  to  impose  form  and  order  on  the  shapeless, 
though  vigorous,  native  drama,  Seneca  seemed  to 
offer  an  admirable  model.  His  tragedies  contained 
abundance  of  melodrama  to  suit  the  popular  taste, 
whilst  his  sententious  philosophy  and  moral  maxims 
appealed  to  the  more  learned,  and  all  was  arranged" ' 
in  a  clear-cut  form,  of  which  the  principle  of  construc- 
tion wasTeasy  to  grasp.  The  great  Greek  tragedians 
were  little  studied  by  the  Elizabethans.  Greek  was 
still  unfamiliar  to  a  large  number  of  students ;  and 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  in  any  case  iEschylus  or 
Sophocles  would  have  been  appreciated  by  the  Eliza- 
bethan public.  The  Senecan  drama,  crjide.  and  melo- 
dramatic as  it  seems  to  us,  appealed  far  more  strongly 
to  the  robust  Englishmen  of  the  sixteenth  century ^-^l  ; 
whose  animal  instincts  were  as  yet  only  half  sub-  > 
dued  by  civilization. 

The  importance  of  the  influence  exercised  by 
Senecan  tragedy  upon  the  development  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan drama  is  now  generally  admitted.     The  extent 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

of  this  influence  has  been  demonstrated  by  J.  W. 
Cunliffe  in  his  Influence  of  Seneca  on  Elizabethan 
Tragedy,  and  by  R.  Fischer  in  Kunstentwicklung  der 
englisclien  Tragodie.  It  affected  both  the  substance 
and  the  form  of  the  drama.  The  division  into_fiy_a_ 
acts,  and  the  introduction  of  the  Chorus,  as  in  Gorbo- 
duc,  The  Misfortunes  of  Arthur,  and  Catiline,  may  be 
taken  as  examples  of  the  influence  of  Seneca  on  the 
form  of  the  Elizabethan  drama,  whilst  in  regard  to 
matter  and  treatment  Senecan  influence  was  yet 
more  important.  It  was  seen  in  the  treatment  of 
the  supernatural,  in  the  selection  of  horrible  and 
sensational  themes,  in  the  tendency  to  insert  long 
rhetorical  and  descriptive  passages,  in  the  use  of  sticho- 
mythia,  in  the  introduction  of  moralising  common- 
places, and  in  the  spirit  of  philosophic  fatalism. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  was  but  natural 
that  students  who  read  Seneca's  tragedies  with 
delight,  and  had  perhaps  taken  part  in  the  perform- 
ances which  were  frequently  given  in  the  colleges  of 
their  own  University,1  should  wish  to  make  him 
known  to  their  less  learned  fellow  countrymen,  and 
to  win  fame  for  themselves  by  translating  into  the 
best  English  verse  at  their  command  an  author  who 
seemed  to  them  so  well  fitted  both  to  please  and 
to  instruct.  Thus  one  of  the  translators  states  that 
it  was  at  the  "  ernest  requeste  "  of  "  certaine  familiar 
frendes  "  that  he  had  "  thus  rashly  attempted  so  great 
an  enterprise,"  and  continues : 


l  Professor  G.  C.  Moore  Smith  in  his  article  Plays  performed 
in  Cambridge  Colleges  before  1585  in  Fasciculus  J.  W.  Clark  dicatus, 
pp.  267 — 270,  states  that  though  the  records  of  Cambridge  Colleges 
are  most  imperfect  during  the  early  part  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  he 
has  been  able  to  ascertain  that  Troas  was  acted  at  Trinity  College 
in  1551-2,  and  again  in  1560-1,  CEdipus  in  1559-60,  and  Medea  in 
1560-1,  and  that  Medea  was  also  acted  at  Queens'  in  1563. 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

They  .  .  .  willed  me  not  to  hyde  and  kepe  to  my  selfe  that 
small  talent  which  god  hath  lente  vnto  me  to  serue  my  countrey 
withall,  but  rather  to  applye  it  to  the  vse  of  suche  yonge  Studentes 
as  therby  myght  take  some  commoditie.i 

During  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  all  the  ten  tragedies 
then  ascribed  to  Seneca  were  translated  into  English 
verse.  Three  of  these — Troas,  Thyestes,  and  Hercules 
Furens — were  translated  by  Jasper  Hey  wood,  younger 
son  of  John  Heywood  the  epigrammatist,  and  fellow 
of  All  Souls'  College,  Oxford.  Alexander  Nevill^a 
Cambridge_student  and  a  friend  of  George  Gascoigne, 
translated  (Edipus.  John  Studley,  scholar  and 
fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  was  responsible 
for  the  versions  of  Agamemnon,  Medea,  Hercules 
(Etazus,2  and  Hippolytus.  Thomas  Nuce,  fellow  of 
Pembroke  Hall,  CanibxLd^e,  translated  Octavia;  and 
the  remaining  play,  or  rather  fragments  of  two  plays, 
Thebais,  or  as  it  is  sometimes  called  Phcenissa7,  was 
rendered  into  English  by  Thomas  Newton,  who  had 
been  a  student  at  both  Oxford  and  Cambridge. 

To  Heywood  belongs  the  credit  of  being  the 
pioneer  in  this  work.  His  Troas  was  published  in 
an  octavo  edition  in  1559,,  and  his  Thyestes,  also  in 
octavo,  in  15ii0.  His  Hercules  Furens  appeared  in 
octavo  in  1561.  Neville's  (Edipus  was  written,  so  he 
tells  us,  in  his  sixteenth  year,  i.e.  in  1560,  but  it  was 
not  published  till  156^  when  it  appeared  in  octavo- 
Nuce's  version  of  Octavia  is  ill  quarto ;  it  is  undated, 
but  there  is  an  entry  which  probably  refers  to  it  in  the 
Stationers'  Register  for  the  year  July  1566 — July  1567. 
Studley's  Agamemnon  appeared   in  octavo  in   1566, 

i  John  Studley.  Agamemnon.  (1566.)  Preface  to  the  Reader 
[omitted  in  the  Tenne  Tragedies.']  See  also  the  passage  quoted 
infra,  p.  27,  from  Neville's  dedicatory  epistle  to  Dr.  Wotton. 

2  The  Bodleian  Library  contains  a  fragment  of  an  unpublished 
translation  of  Hercules  (Etceus  which  is  attributed  to  Queen 
Elizabeth. 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

and  his  Medea,  also  in  octavo,  later  in  the  same 
year.  No  separate  editions  are  extant  of  his  Hercules 
(Etceus  and  Hippolytus,  but  two  entries  in  the 
Stationers'  Register  for  the  year  1566-7  make  it 
probable  that  these  two  translations  appeared  in 
quick  succession  to  Agamemnon  and  Medea.  In  1581 
Thomas  Newton  collected  all  these  versions  of  sepa- 
rate plays,  and  published  them,  together  with  his 
own  Thebais,  added  to  make  the  edition  complete 
in  a  quarto  volume  entitled  "  Seneca  His  Tenne 
Tragedies.     Translated  into  Englysh." 

Contemporary  references  show  us  that  the  trans- 
lations were  widely  read  and  highly  esteemed.  Some 
lines  by  a  certain  T.  B.,  prefixed  to  Studley's  version 
of  Agamemnon  (published  1566)  indicate  that  Hay- 
wood's Troas  had  enjoyed  striking  success — a  success 
which  apparently  exceeded  its  merits  in  T.  B.'s 
estimation.1 

When  Hehvood  did  in  perfect  verse, 

and  dolfull  tune  set  out, 
And  by  hys  sniouth  and  fyled  style 

declared  had  aboute, 
What  roughe  reproche  the  Troyans  of 

the  hardy  Grekes  receyued, 
When  they  of  towne,  of  goods,  and  lyues 

togyther  were  depryued. 
How  wel  did  then  hys  freindes  requite 

his  trauayle  and  hys  paine, 
When  vnto  hym  they  haue   [?gaue]   as  due 

ten  thousand  thankes  agayne? 
What  greater  prayse  might  Virgill  get? 

what  more  renoume  then  this, 
Could  haue  ben  gyuen  unto  hym, 

for  wrytyng  verse  of  hys? 
Did  Virgill  ought  request  but  thys, 

in  labouryng  to  excell? 


i  Some  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  fact  that  Heywood 
was  an  Oxford  man,  whilst  Studley  and  his  friends  belonged  to 
Cambridge. 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

Or  what  did  fame  gyue  to  him  more, 

then  prayse  to  beare  the  bell? 
May  Heywood  this   [thus?]   alone  get  prayse, 

and  Phaer  be  cleane  forgott. 
"Whose  verse  &  style  doth  far  surmount 

and  gotten  hath  the  lot  ? 
Or  may  not  Googe  haue  parte  with  hym, 

whose  trauayle  and  whose  payne, 
Whose  verse  also  is  full  as  good, 

or  better  of  the  twaine? 
A  Neuyle  also  one  there  is, 

"in  verse  that  gyues  no  place 
To  Heiwood  (though  he  be  full  good) 

in  vsyng  of  his  grace. 
Nor  Goldinge  can  haue  lesse  renome, 

whych  Ouid  dyd  translate  : 
And  by  the  thondryng  of  hys  verse 

hath  set  in  chayre  of  state. 
With  him  also  (as  semeth  me) 

our  Edwardes  may  compare, 
Who  nothing  gyuyng  place  to  hym 

doth  syt  in  egall  chayre. 
A  great  sorte  more  I  recken  myght, 

with  Heiwood  to  compare, 
And  this  our  Aucthor  one  of  them 

to  compte  I  will  not  spare. 
Whose  paynes  is  egall  with  the  rest 

in  thys  he  hath  begun, 
And  lesser  prayse  deserueth  not 

then  He i woods  worke  hath  done. 

Ascham  in  his  attack  on  riine  in  the  Scholemaster 
(published  1570,  hut  written  before  1568)  includes  the 
translators  of  "  Ouide,  Palingenius,  and  Seneca " 
together  with  "  Chauser,  Th.  Norton  of  Bristow,  my 
L.  of  Surrey,  M.  Wiat,  Th.  Phaer "  as  examples  of 
writers  who  "have  gonne  as  farre  to  their  great 
praise  as  the  copie  they  followed  could  cary  them," 
and  considers  that  "  if  soch  good  wittes  and  forward 
diligence  had  bene  directed  to  follow  the  best 
examples,  and  not  haue  bene  caryed  by  tynie  and 
custome  to  content  themselues  with  that  barbarous 
and    rude    Ryming,    emonges    their    other    worthy 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

praises,  which  they  haue  iustly  deserued,  this  had 
not  bene  the  least,  to  be  counted  emonges  men  of 
learning  and  sM]^  more  like  vnto  the  Grecians  than 
vnto  the  Gothians  in  handling  of  their  verse."  D) 

William  AVebbe  in  his  Discourse  of  English 
Poetrie  (1586),  mentions  "  the  laudable  Authors  of 
Seneca  in  English,"  and  Francis  Meres  in  Palladis 
Tamia  (1598)  says  "these  versifiers  for  their  learned 
translations  are  of  good  note  among  us,  Phaer  for 
Virgils  illhieads,  Golding  for  Ovid's  Metamorphosis 
.     .     .     .    the  translators  of  Senecaes  Tragedies." 

Nash's  well-known  passage  in  his  preface  "  To  the 

Gentlemen  Students  of  both  Universities  "  prefixed 

to    Greene's    Menaphon    (published    1589)    is    worth 

quoting  in  this  connection  : — 

It  is  a  common  practise  now  a  daies  amongst  a  sort  of  shifting 
companions,  that  runne  through  every  arte  and  thrive  by  none,  to 
leave  the  trade  of  Noverint,  whereto  they  were  borne,  and  busie 
themselves  with  the  indevors  of  Art,  that  could  scarcely  latinize 
their  necke-verse  if  they  should  have  neede;  yet  English  Seneca 
read  by  candle  light  yeeldes  manie  good  sentences,  as  Bloud  is 
a  begger,  and  so  foorth ;  and,  if  you  intreate  him  faire  in  a  frostie 
morning,  he  will  affoord  you  whole  Hamlets,  I  should  say  handfulls 
of  tragical  speaches.  But  O  griefe  !  tempits  eclax  rerum,  what's 
that  will  last  alwaies?  The  sea  exhaled  by  droppes  will  in  con- 
tinuance be  drie,  and  Seneca  let  bloud  line  by  line  and  page  by  page 
at  length  must  needes  die  to  our  stage :  which  makes  his  famisht 
followers  to  imitate  the  Kidde  in  ^Esop,  who,  enamored  with  the 
Foxes  newf angles,  forsooke  all  hopes  of  life  to  leape  into  a  new 
occupation,  and  these  men,  renowncing  all  possibilities  of  credit  or 
estimation,  to  intermeddle  with  Italian  translations. 

This  passage  from  Nash  seems  to  indicate  that 
these  translations  of  Seneca  proved  of  great  use  to 
the  popular  playwrights,  and  especially  to  Kyd,  at 
whom  the  satire  was  probably  aimed.2     The  Spanish 

1  Scholemaster,  Bk.  II,  Sect.  V. 

2  See  F.  S.  Boas,  The  Works  of  Thomas  Kyd.  In  trod.,  pp.  xx — 
xxiv.  Professor  Boas  states  as  his  opinion  that  "though  Nash 
grossly  exaggerates  Kyd's  debt  to  '  English  Seneca,'  it  had  a  strong 
influence  upon  his  dramatic  work."     (p.  xxiv.) 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

Tragedy  contains  paraphrases  of  passages  from 
Seneca  {e.g.  Act  III,  Sc.  i,  11.  1 — 11,  an  adaptation 
of  Agam.  11.  57 — 73),  hnt  these  do  not  show  clearly 
the  influence  of  the  translations,  and  the  Latin 
quotations  from  Seneca  which  abound  in  Act  ill, 
Sc.  xiii  of  the  same  play  indicate  that  Kyd  may 
have  gone  straight  to  the  original. 

As  with  Kyd,  so  with  the  other  Elizabethan 
dramatists  it  is  almost  impossible  to  distinguish 
how  much  of  the  debt  which  they  undoubtedly  owe 
to  Seneca  is  due  to  the  plays  in  the  original,  and 
how  much  to  the  translations.  As  Cunliffe  observes, 
the  more  learned  dramatists  would  not  need  the 
help  of  translations,  while  the  less  learned  who 
were  glad  of  the  aid  afforded  by  Hey  wood  and  his 
fellow-translators,  would  prefer  to  disguise  their 
obligations  by  not  quoting  verbatim.  Undoubtedly 
these   translations  must  havejilone  much  to  spread 

a    general knowWIgja^  of    Seneca,    and    to  ..inspire 

interest  in  his  treatment  of  the  drama,  and  in  all 
probability  their  influence  was  much  greater  than 
any  examination  merely  of  parallel  passages  in 
them  and  in  Elizabethan  plays  would  lead  us  to 
suspect.1 

Though  it  is  in  this  influence  that  their  chief 
value  lies,  the  plays  have  a  certain  interest  of  their 
own.  Much  of  the  verse  is  mere  doggerel,  but  the 
style  of  the  translators  has  a  racy  and  vigorous 
character  which  often  makes  the  reader  forget  its 
metrical  imperfections.  In  the  sixth  and  seventh 
decades  of  the  sixteenth  century  Englishmen  had 
not  yet  found  a  fitting  mode  of  expression   for  the 


i  Cp.  Camb.  Hist,  of  Eng.  Lit.,  Vol.  V.  p.  80.     "In  any  case,  their 
influence  upon  writers  for  the  popular  stage  is  beyond  doubt." 


\ 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

new  life  surging  within  them.  Yet  the  life  was 
there,  however  grotesquely  and  clumsily  it  might 
show  itself,  and  even  its  early  manifestations  are 
worthy  of  attention. 

Moreover  these  translations  afford  valuable 
testimony  as  to  the  grammar,  metre,  and  vocabulary 
used  by  men  of  classical  learning  at  the  beginning  of 
Elizabeth's  reign.  Some  of  the  words  employed 
are  very  curious  and  interesting,  and  the  various 
grammatical  forms  deserve  careful  study. 

At  the  same  time  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
intrinsic  dramatic  worth  of  the  plays  is  small.  The 
translators  had  before  them  an  original  which, 
highly  as  they  esteemed  it,  was  utterly  lacking  in 
true  dramatic  quality,  and  though  they  felt  them- 
selves at  liberty  to  alter  and  adapt  it  on  occasions, 
their  alterations  show  that  they  had  no  perception 
of  the  essentials  of  great  drama. 

Seneca's  plays  are  hardly  drama  at  all  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word.  They  show  rhetoric, 
eloquence,  and  a  facility  for  epigrams,  but,  in  the 
main,  have  little  action  and  less  development  of 
character.  Seneca's  utter  inferiority  to  the  Greek 
dramatists,  when  handling  the  same  themes,  te 
abundantly  illustrated  by  the  Medea.  In  certain 
other  plays,  e.g.  in  the  Hippohjtus,  Seneca  has 
altered  the  story  in  such  a  way  as  completely 
to  ruin  its  tragic  beauty,  but  in  the  Medea  he  has 
followed  Euripides  almost  exactly  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  plot,  and  yet  has  contrived  to  vulgarise 
and_  degrade  the  whole  conception.  In  the  first 
scene  Medea  appears  as  almost  a  rnyinp;  mfljiinr, 
calling     down     vengeance     on     her    husband,     and 


her  language    is    as  wild~and   extravagant    at    the 
beginning  of  the  play  as  at  the  end.     There  is  none 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

of  the  subtle  development  of  character  which  we  find 
in  Euripides,  who  shows  us  Medea  as  a  woman 
whose  latent  barbaric  instincts  gradually  assert 
themselves  under  the  injuries  heaped  on  her,  till  at 
last  the  loving  wife  and  mother  becomes  the  furious 
savage.  In  Euripides'  play,  she  is  by  no  means 
wholly  horrible;  at  first  we  sympathise  with  her 
against  her  foes,  and  though  at  last  we  shudder  at 
her  crime,  we  feel  that  the  guilt  is  Jason's  as  much, 
nay  perhaps  more,  than  hers.  But  in  Seneca's  play 
she  awakens  no  sympathy,  for  she  is  nothing 
but  a  savage  from  beginning  to  end,  except  per- 
haps in  one  interview  with  Jason.  In  the  very 
first  scene  she  announces  her  intention  of  murder- 
ing her  children,  and  thus  the  sense  of  gradually 
growing  horror  with  which  Euripides  leads  up  to 
that  resolve,  is  entirely  lost.  The  beautiful  scene 
in  which  she  suddenly  bursts  into  tears  before 
Jason  over  her  children,  is  wanting  in  Seneca, 
and  finally  she_kills  the  chi]jj|,r^n  nn  fh^^i^aa 
before  their  father's  eyes — a  gratuitous  piece  of 
theatricaFhorror jcarelully  avoided  by  Euripides.  It 
can  hardly  be  said  that  the  Elizabethan  translators 
show  any  greater  sense  of  dramatic  fitness  than  does 
Seneca  himself  ^J.n  fact,  they  often  accentuate  his 
faults  and  obscure  his  merits^/  Seneca's  speeches, 
though  not  well  adapted  to  the  characters  in  whose 
mouths  they  are  put,  are  generally  effective  from  a 
rhetorical  point  of  view,  containing  much  eloquence 
and  many  striking  epigrams.  Unfortunately  Studley 
and  his  companions  exaggerated  Seneca's  eloquence 
till  it  became  mere  rant,  and  elaborated  and 
explained  his  epigrams  till  they  lost  all  their  point. 
Two  examples  will  show  the  translators'  tendency  to 
exaggerate  the  violence  of  the  original. 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

In  the  (Edipus,  11.  935,  936,  945—948,  Seneca  writes: 

Haec  fatus  aptat  impiam  capulo  inanum 
ensemque  ducit.     'itane?... 
...Iterum  vivere  atque  iterum  rnori 
liceat,  renasci  semper  ut  totiens  nova 
supplicia  pendas — utere  ingenio,  miser.' 

The  corresponding  lines  in  Neville's  revised 
translation  are  (Tenne  Tragedies,  f.  91b,  11.  27,  28, 
f.  92  a,  11.  7—14) : 

With  that  his  bloudy  fatall  Blade,  from  out  his  sheath  he  drawes. 

And  lowd  he  rores,  with  thundring  voice.  Thou  beast  why  dost 
thou  pawse? 

O  that  I  might  a  thousand  times,  my  wretched  lyfe  renewe. 

O  that  I  might  revyve  and  dye  by  course  in  order  dewe. 

Ten  hundred  thousand  times  and  more  :  than  should  I  vengeance 
take 

Upon  this  wretched  head.     Than  I  perhaps  in  part  should  make 

A  meete  amends  in  deede,  for  this  my  fowle  and  lothsome  Sin. 

Than  should  the  proof e  of  payne  reprove  the  life  that  I  live  in. 

The  choyse  is  in  thy  hand  thou  wretch,  than  use  thine  owne  dis- 
cretion. 

And  finde  a  meanes,  whereby  thou  maist  come  to  extreame  con- 
fusion. 

Again,  Seneca  puts  into  Medea's  mouth  the  words 

pelle  femineos  metus 
et  inhospitalem  Caucasum  mente  indue 
quodcumque  vidit  Pontus  aut  Phasis  nefas, 
videbit  Isthmos.     effera  ignota  horrida, 
tremenda  caelo  pariter  ac  terris  mala 
mens  intus  agitat. 

This  is  rant  enough  surely,  hut  Studley  is  deter- 
mined to  improve  on  his  original.  His  version  runs 
thus : 

Exile  all  foolysh  Female  feare,  and  pity  from  thy  mynde, 

And  as  th'  untamed  Tygers  use  to  rage  and  raue  unkynde, 

That  haunt  the  croking  combrous  Caves,  and  clumpred  frosen 

cliues ; 
And  craggy  Rockes  of  Caucasus,  whose  bitter  cold  depryues 
The  soyle  of  all  Inhabitours,  permit  to  lodge  and  rest, 
Such  saluage  brutish  tyranny  within  thy  brasen  brest. 

10 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

What  euer  hurly  burly  wrough  doth  Phasis  understand, 
What  mighty  monstrous  bloudy  f eate  I  wrought  by  Sea  or  Land : 
The  like  in  Corynth  shal  be  seene  in  most  outragious  guise, 
Most  hyddious,  hatefull,  horrible,  to  heare  or  see  wyth  eyes, 
Most    divelish,    desperate,   dreadfull   deede,    yet   neuer  knowne 

before, 
Whose  rage  shall  force  heauen,  earth,  and  hell   to   quake   and 

tremble  sore. 

(Tenne  Tragedies,  120b,  9—20.) 

Two  examples  will  illustrate  how  much  some  of 
Seneca's  concise  and  pointed  lines  lose  in  the  trans- 
lation.  Seneca  makes  Creon  say  to  Medea  '  i,  querere 
Colchis.'     Studley  translates  this  by 

Auaunt,  and  yell  out  thy  complayntes  at  Colchis,  get  thee  hence. 

(Tenne  Trag.,  124a,  12.) 

Ill  Here.  GEt.  641,  %  where  the  Latin  has  two  short 

lines : 

quos  felices  Cynthia  vidit, 
vidit  miseros  enata  dies, 

the  English  has  six  long  ones  : 

Whom  Moone  at  morne  on  top  of  Fortunes  wheele 

High  swayed  hath  seene,  at  fulnesse  of  renowne, 

The  glading  sunne  hath  seene  his  Scepter  reele, 

And  him  from  high  fall  topsy  turuey  downe. 

At  morne  full  merry,  blith,  in  happy  plight, 

But  whelmde  in  woes  and  brought  to  bale  ere  nyght. 

{Tenne  Trag.,  198a,  19—24.) 

It  is  unnecessary  to  linger  over  the  dramatic 
weakness  of  the  Tenne  Tragedies.  From  one  point 
of  view  their  very  faults  are  a  merit.  The  imper- 
fections of  Senecan  tragedy  did  good  service  hy 
preventing  unduly  close  imitation.  Had  the  master- 
pieces of  iEschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides  become 
the  models  of  Elizabethan  playwrights,  we  might 
have  lost  our  national  drama,  for  the  English  genius 
is  far  removed  from  the  Greek  in  character.    As  it 

11 


ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS     EROM     SENECA. 

was,  when  the  Elizabethans  had  learnt  what  they 
could  from  Seneca,  they  realised  the  dramatic 
weakness  of  his  tragedies  and  struck  out  a  new  line 
for  themselves.  It  is  curious  to  remember  that  only 
thirty  years  elapsed  between  the  publication  of  even 
the  earliest  of  these  translations  and  that  of 
Marlowe's  Tamburlaine  and  Faust  us,  and  that 
within  fifteen  years  of  the  appearance  of  the 
collected  edition,  Shakespeare  had  written  Romeo 
and  Juliet.1  It  throws  a  light  on  the  extraordinarily 
rapid  development  of  the  English  drama  in  those 
thirty  or  forty  years.  It  seems  a  far  cry  from  the 
broken-backed  lines,  bombastic  rhetoric,  and  puppet 
figures  of  these  Senecan  translations  to  the  perfect 
harmony  of  thought  and  expression,  to  the  ageless 
and  deathless  creations  of  Shakespeare's  plays;  but 
great  poets  can  never  be  isolated  from  their  pre- 
decessors, and  every  one  of  the  forces  which  had 
been  at  work  in  English  literature  had  its  part  in 
the  perfecting  of  the  Elizabethan  drama.  Even 
Shakespeare  might  not  have  been  quite  himself  as 
we  know  him,  had  it  not  been  for  the  work  of  the 
obscure  translators  of  Seneca. 


i  It  should  be  remembered  that  as  late  as  the  production  of 
Hamlet,  Shakespeare  was  in  touch  with  the  Senecan  tradition. 
There  is  a  close  parallel  between  the  Ghost  in  Hamlet  and  the 
Ghost  of  Thyestes  in  Seneca's  Agamemnon,  who  vjsps  a,t  the 
beginning  of  the  play  to  incifco  hie  aon-iEgisthus  to  revenge  the 
wrongs. inflicted  on  him  by  his  brother  Atreua. 


12 


II. 

HEYWOOD'S    TROAS,    THYESTES,    AND 
HERCULES   FURENS. 

Jasper  Heywood,  the  first  of  the  translators,  came 
of  a  literary  family.  He  was  the  younger  son  of 
John  Heywood,  the  epigrammatist  and  writer  of 
interludes,  and  through  his  mother  he  was  connected 
with  Sir  Thomas  More1,  whilst  his  sister  Elizabeth 
was  the  mother  of  John  Donne.  His  life  was  more 
varied  and  adventurous  than  that  of  the  other 
translators,  and  his  plays  show  (more  originality) 
and,  on  the  whole,  more  poetic  power,  than  do  the 
other  versions  included  in  the  Tenne  Tragedies. 

He  was  born  in  1535,  and  sent  to  Oxford  in  1547, 
at  the  early  age  of  twelve.  In  1554  he  was  elected  a 
probationer  fellow  of  Merton  College,  but  in  1558  he 
was  obliged  to  resign  his  posi^-and  late  in  the  same 
year  he  was  elected  to  a  fellowship  at  All  Souls'.  It 
was  while  he  was  a  fellow  of  All  Souls'  that  his 
Senecan  translations  appeared  —  Troas  in  1559, 
TJujcstes  in  1560,  and  Hercules  Fureiis  in  1561. 

It  must  have  been  immediately  after  the  pro- 
duction of  the  last-mentioned  play  that  Heywood 
was  obliged  to  resign  his  fellowship  at  All  Souls'. on 
account  of  the  changes  in  religion.  The  Heywood 
family     was     staunchly     Catholic ;     Jasper's     elder 

i  Jasper  Heywood' s  mother,  Elizabeth  Rastell,  was  the 
grand-daughter  of  Elizabeth,  sister  of  Sir  Thomas  More. 

13 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

brother  Ellis  had  already  retired  from  Oxford  to 
Rome,  and  in  Iftfifl  „wp  find  Jasper  himself  in 
the  Jesuit  community  at  Rome.  After  teaching 
philosophy  and  theology  there  for  two  years  he  was 
sent  to  the  Jesuit  College  of  Dillingen  in  Bavaria. 
where  he  was  appointed  professor  of  moral  theology 
— a  post  which  he  held  for  seventeen  years.. 

In  1581  he  returned  to  England  as  superior  of  the 
English  Jesuit  Mission.  In  1583  he  was  recalled  to 
^  the  Continent,  hut  a  violent  gale  on  the  voyage 
drove  him  back  to  the  English  coast,  where  he  was 
arrested  and  carried  to  London  in  0^°^^"  A  few 
months  later  he  was  tried  with  five  other  priests,  hut 
while  they  were  condemned  and  executed,  he  was 
remanded  to  the  Tower,  and  after  a  year  1  of  strict 
imprisonment  he  was  exiled  to  Franrp,  on  pain  of 
death  if  he  ever  again  set  foot  in  England.  He  spent 
the  remaining  thirteen  years  of  his  life  in  Burgundy, 
Rome,  and  Naples,  dying  at  the  last  mentioned  on 
January  9,  159|.« 

Hey  wood's  three  translations  seem  to  have  been 
very  favourably  received,  and  Uis  Troas  was  the  only 
one  of  the  Tenne  Tragedies  which  passed  through  two 
separate  editions  (1559  and  1563j)  The  other  translators 
speak  of  his  work  with  evident  admiration.  Studley 
goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  "the  other  Tragedies  which 
are  set  furthe  by  Jasper  Heiwood  and  Alexander 
Neuyle,  are  so  excellently  well  done  that  in  reading 
of  them  it  semeth  to  me  no  translation,  but  euen 


i  The  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biog.  states  that  he  endured  seventeen 
months  of  imprisonment  in  the  Tower,  but  according  to  the  dates 
given  in  the  same  article,  he  cannot  have  spent  a  full  year  in  the 
Tower. 

2  I  regret  that  the  edition  of  Heywood's  translations,  with  an 
introduction  by  H.  de  Vocht,  which  Prof.  Bang  bas  promised  us  in 
his  Materialien,  has  not  yet  appeared,  as  it  will  doubtless  throw 
fresh  light  on  Heywood's  adventurous  career. 

14 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

Seneca  hymselfe  to  speke  in  englysh."1  The  praises 
which  T.  B.  in  his  introductory  verses  to  Studley's 
Agamemnon  (see  above,  p.  4)  bestows  on  Hey  wood's 
" perfect  verse  "  and  "  smouth  and  fyled  style"  seem 
somewhat  excessive,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that 
Troas  appeared  in  the  first  year  of  Elizabeth's' reign, 
when  English  versification  had  not  yet  mastered  the 
lessons  which  Wyatt  and  Surrey  had  tried  to  teach 
it,  and  when  Sidney  and  Spenser  were  still  in  their 
infancy.  There  is  much  that  is  grotesque  in 
^Heywood's  work,  but  he  compares  very  favourably 
with  his  fellow  translators,  and  in  one  play  at  least 
-the  Troas — he  shows  real  poetic  feeling.  Amid  all 
the  rant  and  fury  of  Hercules,  (Edipus,  Medea,  and 
their  companions,  the  scene  between  Andromache, 
her  little  son,  and  Ulysses  in  Act  in  of  the  Troas  is 
conspicuous  for  its  tenderness  and  pathos ;  and 
though  this  may  be  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  the 
play  itself  is  one  of  Seneca's  best,  credit  must  be 
given  to  Heywood's  judgment  in  selecting  it  for  his 
first  attempt.  "  I  have,"  he  says  in  his  preface, 
"privately  taken  the  part  which  pleased  me  best  of 
so  excellent  an  author,  for  better  is  tyme  spent  in 
the  best  then  other." 

Heywood's  style  is  much  more  free  from  words  of 
a  colloquial,  dialectal,  or  archaic  character  than  that 
of  Studley,  Nuce,  or  Newton.  His  English  is  on  the 
whole  that  of  the  ordinary  Elizabethan  translator, 
though  he  has  some  striking  Latinisms,  such  as 
'  freate,'  'frete'  =  'sea'  (Lat  fretum),  and  '  roge  '  = 
'funeral  pyre'  (Lat.  rogus),  which  in  one  passage 
of  the  1581  edition  (T.  T.  99a,  27)  has  been  misunder- 
stood by  the  printer  and  appears  as  '  rage.' 

i  Studley.     Agamemnon.     Preface  to  the  Reader. 
15 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  change  in  Heywood's 
attitude  towards  his  original  in  his  successive  transla- 
tions. <^u  the  Troas,  the  earliest  of  the  three,  he  dealt 

^  with  it  very  freely,  adding  a  chorus  of  sixty  lines  of 
his  own  invention  at  the  end  of  Act  I,  a  new  scene 
•consisting   of  a   speech   of  ninety-one   lines  by  the 

3  ghost   of  Achilles   at  the  beginning  of  Act  n,  and 

three   additional   stanzas   at  the  end  of  the  chorus 

>  which    concludes    Act    II.      He    also    substituted    a 

chorus   of  his   own  for  the   Senecan  chorus  at  the 

)  close    of    Act    in.     In    his  preface  '  To  the    Reader 
(T.  T.,    95  b,    96  a),    Hey  wood    speaks    of   these    alter- 
ations in  the  following  terms : — 

Now  as  concerninge  sondrye  places  augmented  and  some  altered 
in  this  niy  translation.  First  forasmuch  as  this  worke  seemed  unto 
mee  in  some  places  vnperflte,  whether  left  so  of  the  Author,  or  parte 
•of  it  loste,  as  tyine  devoureth  all  things,  I  wot  not,  I  haue  (where  I 
thought  good)  with  addition  of  myne  owne  Penne  supplied  the  wante 
■of  some  thynges,  as  the  firste  Chorus,  after  the  fyrste  acte....Also  in 
the  seconde  Acte  I  haue  added  the  Speache  of  Achilles  Spright, 
rysing  from  Hell  to  require  the  Sacrifyce  of  Polyxena....Agayne  the 
three  laste  staues  of  the  Chorus  after  the  same  Acte  :  and  as  for  the 
thyrde  Chorus  which  in  Seneca  beginneth  thus,  Que  vocat  S3des? 
For  as  much  as  nothing  is  therein  but  a  heaped  number  of  farre  and 
straunge  Countries,  considerynge  with  my  selfe,  that  the  names 
of  so  manye  vnknowen  Countreyes,  Mountaynes,  Desertes.  and 
Woodes,  shoulde  have  no  grace  in  the  Englishe  tounge,  but  bee 
a  straunge  and  vnpleasant  thinge  to  the  Readers  (excepte  I  should 
•expound  the  Historyes  of  each  one,  which  would  be  farre  to 
tedious),  I  haue  in  the  place  thereof  made  another  beginninge  in 
this  manner.  O  love  that  leadst,  etc.  OVhich  alteration  may  be 
borne  withall,  seynge  that  Chorus  is  nopart  of  the  substaunce  of 
the  matter.  In  the  rest  I  haue  for  my  slender  learninge  endeuored 
to  keepe  touch  with  the  Latten,  not  worde  for  worde  or  verse  for 
verse,  as  to  expounds  it,  but  neglectynge  the  placinge  of  the  wordes, 
•obserued  their  sence\ 

Iii  the  Tlnjestes  Heywood  has  only  added  one 
•original  speech,  the  soliloquy  of  Thyestes  at  the 
close  of  the  play,  in  which  the  unhappy  father 
invokes  on  himself  all  the  torments  of  hell. 

16 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

In  the  Hercules  Furens,  published  in  1561,  there 
is  no  addition  of  original  matter,  and  it  is  clear  from 
the  character  of  the  translation  itself  that  Heywood 
no  longer  "  endevored  to  keepe  touch  with  the  Latten, 
not  worde  for  worde  or  verse  for  verse,  but  neg- 
lectynge  the  placinge  of  the  wordes,  observed  their 
sence,"  but  that  his  aim  was  to  reproduce  the  Latin 
much  more  closely.  On  the  title-page  he  states,  first 
in- Latin,  then  in  English,  that  the  tragedy  is  "newly 
perused  and  of  all  faultes  whereof  it  did  before  abound 
diligently  corrected,  and  for  the  profit  of  young 
schollers  so  faithfully  translated  into  English  metre, 
that  ye  may  se  verse  for  verse  tourned  as  farre  as  the 
phrase  of  the  English  permitteth." 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  this  change  in 
Heywood's  method  of  translation  was  really  bene- 
ficial to  his  work.  In  striving  to  keep  the  Latin 
order  of  words,  his  English  becomes  clumsy  and 
frequently  obscure,  e.g.,  Here.  Fur.,  D  1,  T.  T.,  5a,  9, 10 : 

Nor  handes  that  well  durst  enterprise  his  noble  travayles  all 
The  filthy  labour  made  to  shrynke  of  foule  Augias  hall, 

where  '  labour '  is  the  nominative,  and  '  handes  '  the 
accusative.     Or  Here.  Fur.,  I 1,  T.  T.,  13a,  31-  34 : 

As  gret  as  when  comes  houre  of  longer  night, 
And  willyng  quiet  sleepes  to  bee  extent, 
Holds  equal  Libra  Phoebus  Chariots  light, 
A  sorte  the  secrete  Ceres  doo  frequent, 

where  the  meaning  is  difficult  to  grasp  without  the 
Latin : 

quanta,  cum  longae  redit  hora  nocti 
crescere  et  somnos  cupiens  quietos 
Libra  Phoebeos  tenet  aequa  currus, 
turba  secretam  Cererem  frequentat. 

The    attempt    to    reproduce    exactly    Latin    con- 

17 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

structions  is  not  always   very  happy,  e.g.,  T.  T.,  5b,. 
8—10,  Here.  Fur.,  D  3,  6:  » 

and  beaten  with  thy  stroake 

The   mount,   now   here,    now   there   fell   downe :  and   rampier 

rente  of  stay, 
The  raging  brooke  of  Thessaly  did  roon  a  newe  found  way, 

whore   the  last  clause  is  an  attempt  to  follow  the 
Latin :  , 

et  rupto  aggere 
nova  cucurrit  Thessalus  torrens  via ; 

and  T.  T.,  7a,  16,  17,  Here.  Fur.,  e  3 : 

what  should  I  the  mothers  speake 

Both  suffring,  and  aduentring  gyltes? 

which  represents  the  Latin 

.  .  ,  .  .  quid  matres  loquar 
passas  et  ausas  scelera? 

and  T.  T.,  14a,  15,  16,  Here.  Fur.,  i3: 

Hee  ouer  Foordes  of  Tartare  brought 
Beturnde  appeased  beeinge  Hell, 

which  represents : 

Transvectus  vada  Tartari 
pacatis  redit  inferis. 

This  close  attention  to  the  construction  of  the 
original  has  influenced  Heywood's  metre,  for  the 
attempt  to  represent  one  Latin  line  by  one  English, 
whilst  keeping  the  Latin  order  of  words,  has  resulted 
in  much  enjambement,  and  in  a  consequent  placing 
of  the  caesura  earlier  in  the  line  than  is  its  normal 
position.  One  passage  from  Megara's  speech  at  the 
beginning  of  Act  n  (T.  T.,  4b,  3—10,  Here.  Fur.,  c  6) 
will  illustrate  this : 


l  A  mistake  has  been  made  in  the  binding  of  the  1561  edition, 
D  6  occupies  the  place  of  d  4. 

18 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

To  mee  yet  neuer  day 

Hath  careles  shin'de:  the  ende  of  one  affliction  past  away 

Beginning  of  an  other  is :  an  other  ennemy 

Is  forthwith  founde,  before  that  hee  his  joyfull  family 

Retourne  vnto:  an  other  fyght  hee  taketh  by  behest: 

Nor  any  respite  ginen  is  to  him  nor  quiet  rest : 

But  whyle  that  he  commaunded  is :  straight  him  pursueth  shee 

The  hatefull  Iuno. 

The  extent  of  the  alteration  produced  in 
Heywood's  rhythm  may  be  gauged  by  the  different 
proportion  of  lines  with  the  main  pause  after  the 
second  or  third  foot  to  be  found  in  the  Hercules 
Furens  as  compared  with  the  Troas.  Metrically, 
the  ear  requires  the  caesura  after  the  fourth  foot, 
and  there  is  usually  a  slight  pause  at  that  place, 
but  the  main  pause  (or,  as  it  may  be  called,  the 
logical  caesura  as  distinct  from  the  metrical)  often 
occurs  earlier  in  the  line,  and  in  the  Troas  the 
proportion  of  lines  in  which  it  is  to  be  found  after 
the  second  foot  is  under  six  per  cent,  of  the  total 
number  of  fourteeners,  whilst  in  the  Hercules  Furens 
it  is  over  twenty-two  per  cent.  Again,  in  the  Troas 
the  number  of  lines  with  the  logical  caesura  after 
the  third  foot  is  under  two  per  cent.,  whilst  in  the 
Hercules  Furens  it  is  over  six  per  cent.  Thus  in 
the  latter  play,  the  number  of  normal  lines  in  which 
the  logical  and  metrical  caesuras  coincide  in  falling 
after  the  fourth  foot,  has  enormously  decreased. 


19 


III. 


NEVILLE'S    (EDIPUS. 

Alexander  Neville,  the  translator  of  the  (Edipus, 
was  born  in  1544.  He  was  the  son  of  Richard  Neville, 
of  South  Leverton,  Nottinghamshire,  and  his  mother 
was  the  daughter  of  Sir  Walter  Mantell  and  sister  of 
Margaret,  the  mother  of  Barnabe  Googe.  Alexander's 
younger  brother,  Thomas  Neville,  had  a  distinguished 
career,  becoming  Dean,  first  of  Peterborough,  then  of 
Canterbury,  and  Master  of  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge. 

Alexander  seems  to  have  entered  at  Cambridge  at 
the  early  age  of  twelve,  for  we  find  that  he  graduated 
B.A.  in  15£§.  It  was  in  1560  that  he  translated  the 
(Edipus  according  to  his  prefatory  letter  to  Wotton, 
though  it  did  not  appear  in  print  till  1563.1  After 
leaving  Cambridge  he  studied  law  in  London,  where 
he  made  the  acquaintance  of  George  Gascoigne.  He 
was  one  of  the  "five  sundry  Gentlemen"  who  required 
Gascoigne  "  to  write  in  verse  somewhat  worthye  to 
bee  remembred,  before  he  entered  into  their  fellow- 
shippe,"  and  he  proposed  the  Latin  motto,  Sat  cito, 


i  In  1563  Neville  also  contributed  commendatory  verses  to  the 
Eglogs  of  Barnabe  Googe,  who  was  his  cousin,  not  his  uncle,  as  the 
Diet,  of  Nat.  Biog.  erroneously  states. 

20 


ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS     FROM     SENECA. 

si  sat  bene,  on  which  Gascoigne  composed  "  seven 
Sonets  in  seq  [u]  ence." 

Neville  became  secretary  to  Archbishop  Parker, 
and  remained  in  the  service  of  Parker's  successors,. 
Grindal  and  Whitgift.  In  1575  he  published  a  Latin 
account  of  Rett's  rebellion  of  1549,  to  which  he 
appended  a  description  of  Norwich  and  its  anti- 
quities, and  in  1587  there  appeared  Academics  Canta- 
brigiensis  lacrymce  tumulo  ...  P.  Sidney  sacratce 
per  A.  Nev ilium.  The  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biog.  suggests 
that  he  may  be  identified  with  the  Alexander  Neville 
who  sat  in  Parliament  as  M.P.  for  Christchurch, 
Hampshire,  in  1585,  and  for  Saltash  in  1601.  He  died 
in  1614,  and  was  buried  in  Canterbury  Cathedral, 
where  Thomas  Neville,  then  Dean  of  Canterbury, 
erected  a  monument  to  commemorate  his  brother 
and  himself. 

The  title  page  of  the  first  edition  of  Neville's 
GUdipus  runs  thus: — 

"  The  Lamentable  Tragedie  of  CEdipus  the  Sonne 
of  Laius  Kyng  of  Thebes  out  of  Seneca.  By  Alexander 
Neuyle.  Imprynted  at  London  in  seint  Brydes 
Churchyarde :  ouer-agaynst  the  North  doore  of  the 
Churche  :  by  Thomas  Colwell.     1563.     28  Aprilis." 

Then  follows  a  dedicatory  epistle  "  To  the  ryght 
Honorable  Maister  Doctor  Wotton :  One  of  the 
Queues  Maiesties  priuye  Counsayle,"  which  occupies 
four  pages.  This  is  followed  by  "  The  Preface  to  the 
Reader,"  occupying  seven  pages,  after  which  comes 
the  list  of  dramatis  persona.  The  translation 
occupies  eighty-three  pages,  and  is  followed  by  a  page 
containing  a  list  of  errata,  and  the  colophon. 

i  See  Gascoigne.     Posies.     Flowers.     Gascoigne' s  Memories. 

21 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

The  volume1  is  a  small  octavo  with  the  collation 
a8  A — E8  F2  . 

Neville's  translation  of  the  (Edipus  possesses 
particular  interest  for  us,  since  it  is  the  only  one  of 
the  Tonic  Tragedies  of  1581  which  had  undergone  a 
thorough  revision  since  its  first  appearance.  A  care- 
ful comparison  of  the  text  of  the  first  editions  of 
Hey  wood,  Studley,  and  Nuce's  versions  with  that  of 
these  plays  as  they  appeared  in  the  Tenne  Tragedies 
shows  that  the  1581  edition  was  merely  a  reprint  of 
the  earlier  text.  With  Neville's  (Edipus  the  case  is 
otherwise.  It  is  true  that  no  hint  is  given  of  the 
changes  which  have  been  made,  and  the  title,  which 
would  lead  the  reader  to  imagine  that  he  had  here  a 
faithful  reproduction  of  Neville's  early  work,  runs 
thus : — "  (Edipus.  The  Fifth  Tragedy  of  Seneca, 
Englished.  The  yeare  of  our.  Lord  M.D.L.X.  By 
Alexander  Nevyle,"  and  is  followed  by  the  dedication 
to  Wotton  and  the  "  Preface  to  the  Reader,"  which 
had  appeared  in  the  edition  of  1563.  Yet  there  are 
changes  even  in  the  dedicatory  "epistle  to  Wotton. 
It  now  opens  with  a  reference,  absent  in  the  earlier 
edition,  to  "  this  sixtenth  yeare  of  myne  age "  [i.e. 
1560] . 

The  translation  itself  has  been  practically  re- 
written. Those  critics  who  have  consulted  only  the 
edition  of  1581  have  often  praised  the  excellence  of 
this  translation  of  Oedipus  when  considered  as  the 
work  of  a  youth  of  sixteen.  Thus  Warton  says, 
"Notwithstanding  the  translator's  youth,  it  is  by  far 
the  most  spirited  and  elegant  version  in  the  whole 
collection,  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  did  not 


i  The  copy  here   described  is  that    in   the  British   Museum. 
34  .  a  .  9  (1). 

22 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

undertake  all  the  rest,"  and  this  verdict  was  repub- 
lished in  the  introduction  to  the  Spenser  Society's 
reprint  of  the  Tenne  Tragedies  in  1887.  It  is  echoed  by 
E.  Jockers  in  his  Die  englischen  Seneca-Uebersetzer 
des  16.  Jahrhunderts — "Nevyle  ist  ohne  Zweifel  der 
begabteste  von  samtlichen  Uebersetzern.  Seine 
Uebersetzung  zeigt  dichterischen  Schwung  unci 
jugendliche  Lebendigkeit,"1  and  in  a  foot-note  Jockers 
quotes  Warton's  judgment,  and  opposes  Collier's  less 
favourable  estimate  of  Neville.  Neither  Jockers  nor 
the  writer  of  the  article  on  Neville  in  the  Dictionary 
of  National  Biography  shows  any  knowledge  of 
the  difference  between  the  two  editions  of  the 
CEdipus. 

Almost  every  line  of  the  translation  contains 
some  alteration  from  the  earlier  version.  In  the 
edition  of  15(33  Neville's  versification  had  been  ex- 
tremely irregular ;  intermingled  with  the  regular 
fourteeners  which  formed  the  staple  metre  of  his 
translation  were  lines  containing  twelve  or  sixteen 
syllables,  unrhyming  fourteeners,  or  even  short  un- 
rhyming  lines  of  four  or  six  syllables.  In  the  later 
edition  the  versification  runs  much  more  smoothly, 
and  the  greater  number  of  the  irregularities  have 
been  removed,  though  one  or  two  examples  remain.2 

Changes  other  than  metrical  are  also  abundant. 
Speeches  are  altered  and  assigned  to  different 
characters,3    lines    are    inserted    or     omitted,4    and 


1  Die  englischen  Seneca-Uebersetzer.     p.  43. 

2  e.g.  Tenne  Trag.  79  b,  7,  82  b,  14,  92  b,  10. 

3  e.g.  Iocasta's  speech  in  Act  I,  1.  22  is  given  to  (Edipus,   and 
'  you  '  is  accordingly  changed  to  '  I,'  and  '  that '  to  '  this.' 

4  Act  I,  1.  4  is  an  insertion. 

23 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

there  are   a  large   number  of  purely   verbal  altera- 
tions.1 

The  extent  of  the  alterations    may  be  gauged  by  a 
comparison  of  some  passages  from  Act  I — 


1563  Edition. 


11.  1—5. 


The  night   is  gon.  &  dredfull 

day    begins    at    length   to 

appeare 
And  Lucifer  beset  wt  Clowds, 

hymself  aloft  doth  reare. 
And  gliding  forth  with  heavy 

hewe.   A  doleful  blase  doth 

beare  (in  Skyes). 
Now    shal    the    houses    voide 

be  sene,  with  Plagues  de- 

uoured  quight : 
And    slaughter    yt    the    night 

hath     made,     shall     daye 

brynge  forth  to  lyght. 


1581  Edition. 


11.  1—6. 


The  Night  is  gon  :  and  dredfull 

day  begins  at  length  t'ap- 

peere  : 
And  Phoebus  all  bedim 'de  with 

Clowdes,     himselfe     aloft 

doth  reere. 
And  glyding  forth  with  deadly 

hue,    a    dolefull   blase    in 

Skies 
Doth   beare 

dismay 

Eyes. 
Now  shall  the  houses    voyde 

bee    seene,    with    Plague 

deuoured  quight  ? 
And  slaughter  that  the  night 

hath  made,  shall  day  bring 

forth  to  light. 


Great  terror   & 
to    the  beholders 


11.  10—13. 

For  as  the  mountaynes  houge 
and  hie,  the  blustryng 
windes  withstand, 

And  craggy  Rocks,  the  belch- 
ing fluds  do  dash  and  beate 
fro  land. 

Though  that  the  seas  in  quiet 
are  and  nought  at  all  do 
fome  : 

So  kingdoms  great  submytted 
lye,  to  Fortunes  doulfull 
Dome. 


11.  11—14. 

For  as  the  Mountaynes  huge 

and    hie,      the      blustring 

windes  withstand. 
And  craggy  Rocks,  the  belching 

fluds  do  dash,   and  driue 

fro  land : 
Though  that  the  Seas  in  quiet 

are,  and  calme  on  euery 

side : 
So  kingdoms  great  all  Windes 

andWauesof  Fortune  must 

abide. 


i  e.g.  '  remayne  '  in  Act  I,  1.  62  for  '  abyde,'  '  woe  '  in  1.  94  for 
'grief.* 


24 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 


1563  Edition. 
11.  28—34. 

This  feare  and  only  this  my 
[read,  me]  dryues  from 
fathers  kingdoms  great. 

Not  lyke  a  wanderyng  Vaca- 
bounde  the  wayes  un- 
knowen  I  beate, 

But  all  mystrustfull  of  my 
selfe  thy  lawes  (O  Nature) 
for  to  keape 

I  sought  the  meanes.  Yet 
feare  I  stil  and  fear  into 
rny  mynde  doth  creape 

Though  cause  of  Dread  not  one 
I  se  yet  feare  and  dread  I 
all. 

And  scante  in  credit  with  my- 
self, I  seke  my  fatal  fall 

(ByDomeof  doulful  Destinies.) 

For  what  shuld  I  suppose  the 
cause  ?  A  Plage  that  is  so 
generall    .... 


1581  Edition. 
11.  29—41. 

This  feare,  and  onely  this  me 

causde   my    fathers    king- 
dome  great 
For   to    forsake.       I   fled  not 

thence      when     fear     the 

minde  doth  beat. 
The  restlesse  thought  still  dreds 

the    thing,   it  knows    can 

neuer  chaunce. 
Such  fansies  now  torment  my 

heart,    my   safety   to    ad- 

uaunce, 
And    eke  thyne    euer    sacred 

lawes    (O   Nature)   for    to 

keepe 
A  stately  Scepter  I   forsooke, 

yet      secret      feare      doth 

creepe 
Within  my   breast :  and  frets 

it    still    with    doubt    and 

discontent, 
And     inward    pangues    which 

secretly    my     thoughts    a 

sunder  rent. 
So  though  no  cause  of  dred  I 

see,  yet  feare  and  dred  I 

all, 
And   scant  in  credit  with  my 

selfe,     my     thoughts    my 

mind  appall 
That   I  cannot  perswaded  be, 

though  reason  tell  me  no, 
But  that  the  Web  is  weauing 

still  of  my  decreed  wo. 
For  what  should  I  suppose  the 

cause '?  a  Plague  that  is  so 

generall    .... 


The  reason  for  these  changes  is  evident.  In  the 
eighteen  years  which  had  elapsed  since  the  first 
publication  of  Neville's  translation,  English  poetry 
had   made   marvellous    progress.      The    standard   of 

25 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

versification  had  been  raised,  and  the  halting  metre 
which  had  been  tolerated1  in  1563  would  in  1581  no 
longer  pass  muster,  even  as  the  work  of  a  youth  of 
sixteen.  It  may  be  urged  that  the  same  reason 
ought  to  have  produced  revised  versions  of  the  work 
of  Heywood  and  Studley,  but  the  difference  between 
their  case  and  that  of  Neville  must  be  borne  in  mind. 
When  the  Tenne  Tragedies  appeared,  Heywood  was  a 
Jesuit  priest,  exiled  from  England,  and  Studley,  who 
was  no  longer  a  Fellow  of  Trinity,  may  also  have 
been  absent  from  England.  In  both  cases  the 
translators  had  been  forced  to  give  up  their  university 
careers,  and  had  devoted  themselves  to  the  promulga- 
tion of  their  religious  opinions,  widely  different  as 
these  were  from  each  other.  Neither  would  have 
desired  to  spend  time  over  the  revision  of  what  he 
would  have  deemed  a  trifling  production  of  his  less 
serious  youth,  even  if,  as  seems  unlikely,  the  editor 
of  the  1581  volume  consulted  them  in  the  matter. 
Neville,  on  the  other  hand,  had  remained  a  scholar 
and  was  now  Secretary  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury.  He  was  the  author  of  various  Latin 
works,  and  his  brother  was  one  of  the  most  distin- 
guished Cambridge  dignitaries.  A  drastic  revision  of 
the  early  translation  was  necessary,  but  even  when 
this  was  complete  Neville  seems  to  have  felt  that  the 
result  was  not  altogether  creditable  to  his  mature 
scholarship,    and     he     therefore     sheltered     himself 


IT.  B.  in  his  commendatory  verses  prefixed,  to  Studley 's 
Agamemnon  (1566)  says  when  enumerating  the  translators  who  can 
rival  Jasper  Heywood : 

"A  Neuyle  also  one  there  is,  in  verse  that  gyues  no  place 
To  Heiwood  (though  he  be  full  good)  in  vsying  of  his  grace." 

26 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

behind  the  title  and  dedication  which  ascribed   the 
work  to  his  sixteenth  year.1 

In  both  its  original  and  its  revised  form  the 
translation  is  decidedly  free.  In  his  dedicatory  epistle 
to  Dr.  Wotton,  Neville  excuses  this  freedom  on  the 
plea  that  he  had  made  the  translation  only  for  the 
use  of  a  few  friends,  who  apparently  wished  to  act  it. 

For  I  to  none  other  ende  rernoued  him  [i.e.  Seneca]  from  his 
naturall  and  lofty  style,  to  our  corrupt  and  base,  or  as  some  men 
(but  vntruly)  [1563  al  men]  affyrme  it,  most  barbarous  Language :  but 
onely  to  satisfy  the  instant  requests  of  a  few  my  familiar  trends,  who 
thought  to  haue  put  it  to  the  very  same  use,  that  Seneca  himself e 
in  his  Inuention  pretended :  Which  was  by  the  tragicall  and 
Pompous  showe  vpon  Stage,  to  admonish  all  men  of  their  fickle 
Estates,  to  declare  the  vnconstant  head  of  wauering  Fortune,  her 
sodayne  interchaunged  and  soone  altered  Face  :  and  lyuely  to 
expresse  the  iust  reuenge,  and  fearefull  punishmets  of  horrible 
Crimes,  wherewith  the  wretched  worlde  in  these  our  myserable 
dayes  pyteously  swarmeth.  This  caused  me  not  to  be  precise  [1563 
to  precise]  in  following  the  Author,  word  for  word  :  but  sometymes 
by  addition,  somtimes  by  subtraction,  to  vse  the  aptest  Phrases  in 
geuing  the  Sense  that  I  could  inuent.  Whereat  a  great  numbre  (I 
know)  will  be  more  offended  than  Reason  or  Wysedome  woulde 
they  should  bee. 

It  is  in  the  choric  portions  that  Neville  has 
treated  his  original  most  freely.  He  has  expanded 
^  the  chorus  IrTthe  first  act  from  ninety-two  lines  to  a 
hundred  and  seventeen,  whilst  he  has  entirely 
omitted  the  chorus  of  a  hundred  and  six  lines  in 
praise  of  Bacchus  at  the  close  of  Act  II.  He  has 
replaced  the  chorus  of  fifty-five  lines  in  Act  hi  by  a. 

n e w    plinrnc q£-  twentv-twjo__lin£g_ _  d e al i n g   w i tli— -a 

>•>  different   subject;   and   similarly  in   Act  IV  he   has 
substituted  a  short  original  chorus  of  fourteen  lines 


l  The  edition  of  15S1  insists  strongly  on  the  fact,  scarcely 
mentioned  in  that  of  1563,  that  the  translation  was  made  in  1560.  In 
the  list  of  plays  and  translators  at  the  beginning  of  the  Tenne 
Tragedies,  the  only  play  of  which  the  date  is  mentioned  is  Neville's 
(Edipus,  to  which  '  1560 '  is  added. 

27 


t? 


vvv 


6< 


f 


1 

THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS  f    ' 

for  the  Senecan  one  of  thirty  lines.  The  chorus 
in  Act  V  is  substantially  the  same  as  Seneca's, 
though  Neville,  who  has  a  liking  for  moral  maxims, 
adds  four  lines  quite  in  the  Senecan  manner : 

And  thou  that  subiect  art  to  death.     Regard  thy  latter  day. 
Thinke  no  man  blest  before  his  ende.     Aduise  thee  well  and  stay. 
Be  sure  his  lyfe,  and  death,  and  all,  be  quight  exempt  from  mysery . 
Ere  thou  do  once  presume  to  say :  this  man  is  blest  and  happy. 

(Tenne  Tragedies.     92b,  30-33.) 

Iii  the  dramatic  portions  Neville  follows  his 
original  much  more  closely,  but  he  has  a  tendency  to 
expand  it  by  adding  unnecessary  reflections.  Thus 
he  enlarges  the  last  speech  of  CEdipus  from  twenty 
lines  to  fifty-two  by  making  such  additions  as  the 
following  : 

O  OZdipus  accursed  wretch,  lament  thine  own  Calamity, 
Lament  thy  state,  thy  griefe  lament,  thou  Caitife  borne  to  misery. 
Where  wilt  thou  now  become  (alas  '?)  thy  Face  where  wilt  thou 

hyde  : 
O  myserable  Slaue,  canst  thou  such  shamefull  tormentes  byde  ? 

(Tenne  Tragedies.     94a,  7-10.) 

After  the  messenger's  description,  a  little  earlier 
in  the  same  act,  of  the  despair  of  CEdipus  and  his 
plucking  out  of  his  own  eyes,  Neville  puts  these 
moral  lines  into  the  messenger's  mouth  : 

Beware  betimes,  by  him  beware,  I  speake  vnto  you  all. 
Learne  Justice,  truth,  and  feare  of  God  by  his  vnhappy  fall. 

{Tenne  Tragedies.     92b,  11,  12.) 

A  full  account  of  Neville's  divergences  from  the 
Latin  in  the  revised  edition  of  1581  will  be  found  in 
Jockers  Die  englischen  Seneca-TJebersetzer,\)\).-i-i — 62. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  extracts  already  given 
that  Neville  has  all  the  Elizabethan  readiness  to 
point  a  moral,  accentuated  by  his  extreme  youth 
when    he    first    undertook    the    translation    of    the 

28 


OP     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

CEdipus.  The  'Preface  to  the  Reader'  which 
appeared  in  the  edition  of  1563,  and  was  reprinted 
verbatim  in  that  of  1581,  shows  that  he  approached 
his  task  with  the  moral  severity  and  censoriousness 
of  sixteen  years'  experience  of  life.  Moral  in  their 
aims  as  are  the  other  translators  of  Seneca,  they 
cannot  equal  Neville,  who  sees  in  the  unfortunate 
CEdipus  only  "  a  dredfull  Example  of  Gods  horrible 
vengeance  for  sinne ",  and  a  suitable  warning  for 
"  our  present  Age,  wherein  Vice  hath  chiefest  place, 
&  Vertue  put  to  flight,  lies  as  an  abiect,  languishing 
in  great  extremity." 


29 


IV. 

STUDLEY'S    AGAMEMNON,  MEDEA,  HER- 
CULES   CETJEUS,    AND    HIPPOLYTUS. 

John  Studley's  career  presents  in  some  respects  a 
curious  parallel  to  that  of  Jasper  Heywood.  Both 
translators  were  University  men,  fellows  of  colleges, 
whose  versions  of  Seneca  were  their  first  essays  in 
literature.  Though  their  religious  opinions  were 
widely  different — Hey  wood  being  a  Roman  Catholic 
and  Studley  a  Puritan — they  both  lost  their  fellow- 
ships on  account  of  those  opinions,  and  in  after  life 
both  abandoned  classical  scholarship  for  theological 
controversy. 

John  Studley  was  one  of  the  original  scholars  of 
Westminster  School,1  and  the  first  to  be  elected  to 
Cambridge.  In  the  Cambridge  University  Register 
it  is  stated  that  he  matriculated  as  a  pensioner  at 
Trinity  College,  12  May,  1563,  and  proceeded  B.A. 
156f,  and  M.A.  1570.  According  to  the  books  of 
Trinity  College,  he  became  a  minor  fellow,  8  Sept., 
1567,  and  a  major  fellow,  7  April,  1570. 

At  this  time  the  Master  of  Trinity  was  the 
famous  Dr.  Whitgift,  afterwards  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  a  High  Churchman  and  strict  dis- 
ciplinarian, who  was  chiefly  responsible  for  certain 
new  statutes  of  the  University  which   were   aimed 

i  Alumni  Westmonast.,  p.  45.  See  also  Studley's  Agamemnon 
(1566),  dedicatory  epistle  to  Sir  W.  Cecil. 

30 


ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS     FROM     SENECA. 

against  the  Puritans.  Trinity  College  also  contained 
the  leader  of  the  Puritan  faction,  Thomas  Cart- 
Avright,  Lady  Margaret  Professor  of  Divinity,  and 
party  feeling  must  have  been  extremely  bitter  within 
the  college. 

Strype's  Life  of  Whitgift,  which  gives  us  a  lively 
picture  of  the  internal  dissensions  of  the  University 
at  this  time,  tells  us  that  there  was  "  a  great  faction 
in  Trinity  College  of  such  as  were  disaffected  to  the 
j>resent  ecclesiastical  settlement,  which  created  the 
Master  no  small  trouble  and  disquiet."  It  appears 
that  in  1572  Whitgift  thought  of  resigning  his  post 
on  account  of  these  dissensions.  In  Strype's  words, 
"  as  he  [Whitgift]  was  an  impartial  executor  of  the 
statutes  of  the  college;  so  he  had  hereby  raised  the 
stomachs  of  some  of  the  Fellows  against  him,  who 
contended  unkindly  with  him ;  they  had  treated  him 
with  so  much  slander,  and  such  reviling  terms,  as 
wholly  discouraged  him  to  tarry  any  longer  among 
them."i 

It  is  clear  that  Studley  belonged  to  this  section 
among  the  Fellows.  His  name  appears  in  a  list  of 
one  hundred  and  sixty-four  signatures  appended  to 
a  declaration  issued  in  1562  in  connection  with  the 
disturbances  directed  against  the  new  statutes.2  On 
1  February,  157J,  Studley  and  Booth,  another 
fellow  of  Trinity,  became  sureties  in  the  sum  of  £10, 
for    John    Browning,3    also    a    fellow   of    the    same 

1  Strype,  Life  of  Whitgift,  p.  51. 

2  Hey  wood  and  Wright,  Cambridge  University  Transactions, 
Vol.  I,  p.  61. 

3  Baker  MS.,  iii,  p.  392  (Harl.  7030).  "Febr:  1  Johes 
Brownyng  M:  A:  Socius  Col:  Trin: — et  Hugo  Boothe  et  Jo:  Studley 
M"  A:  et  socii  ejusdem  Coll:  veneruut  coram  Tho:  Bynge  vicecan: 
et  recognoverunt  se  debere  Dnae  Reginae  viz  Jo:  Br:  centuru  luarcae 
— et  praed:  Hugo  et  Jo:  40'it>  solvend: — sub  conditione  sequenti  ..." 
(Then  follow  the  conditions  which  Browning  was  to  observe.) 

31 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

college,  who  had  been  committed  to  the  Tolbooth  for 
"  uttering  in  St.  Mary's  certain  doctrines  tending  to 
the  heresy  of  Novatus,"  and  for  disobeying  the 
consequent  command  of  Whitgift  and  the  heads  of 
houses  to  abstain  from  preaching  "  till  his  further 
purgation." 

By  1573  Whitgift  had  been  persuaded  to  remain 
at  Trinity,  and  was  determined  to  exercise  strict 
discipline  over  the  refractory  Fellows.  Those  who 
would  not  submit  were  obliged  to  leave  their 
posts.  It  appears  from  the  college  books  that 
Studley  ceased  to  be  a  Fellow  at  the  end  of  1573,  for 
according  to  the  Bursar's  book  for  the  year  Michael- 
mas 1573-1574,  he  received  his  stipendium  only  for 
the  quarter  from  Michaelmas  to  Christmas,  1573. 
No  reason  is  there  given  for  his  withdrawal,  but 
among  the  "extraordinary  expenses"  for  the  same 
year  there  is  an  item  "to  Mr.  Studley  at  his 
departure  vlb,"  which  seems  to  indicate  that  some 
compensation  was  made  him  for  the  determination 
of  his  Fellowship.1 

Little  is  known  of  Studley's  after  life.-  In  1574  he 
produced  a  translation  of  Bale's  "  Acta  Pontificum 
Romanorum,"  under  the  title  of  "  The  Pageant  of 
Popes,  Contayninge  the  lyues  of  all  the  Bishops  of 


1  For  this  information  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  Mr. 
Aldis  Wright,  Vice-Master  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 

2  Richard  Robinson,  in  his  Rewardc  of  Wickednesse  (1574), 
mentions  Studley  in  such  a  way  as  to  imply  that  the  latter  belonged 
to  the  Inns  of  Court.  After  seeing  Helen  of  Troy,  Medea,  Pope 
Alexander  the  Sixth,  and  others  in  hell,  and  "  Skelton  and  Lydgat, 
Wager,  Hey  wood,  and  Bamabe  Googe  "  in  the  garden  of  the  Muses 
on  Helicon,  Robinson  is  commanded  by  the  Muses  to  write  what 
Morpheus  has  shown  him  in  a  book.     He  excuses  himself  by  saying  : 

Your  Honours  haue  in  Th'innes  of  Court,  a  sort  of  Gentlemen, 
That  fine  would  fit  your  whole  intentes,  with  stately  stile  to  Pen. 
Let  Studley,  Hake,  or  Fulwood  take,  that  William  hath  to  name, 
This  piece  of  worke  in  hande,  that  bee  more  fitter  for  the  same. 

32 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

Rome,  from  the  begiiminge  of  them  to  the  yeare  of 
Grace  1555  ....  Shewing  manye  straunge, 
notorious,  outragious,  and  tragicall  partes  played  by 
them  the  like  whereof  hath  not  els  bin  hearde :  both 
pleasant  and  profitable  for  this  age.  Written  in 
Latin  by  Maister  Bale,  and  now  Englished  with 
sondrye  additions  by  I.  S." 

Chetwood  states  that  Stndley  was  "killed  in 
Flanders  at  the  Siege  of  Breda^haying  a_c_ommand 
under JPrince  Maurice,  in  1587." l  Not  much  reliance 
can  be  placed  on  this  statement.  The  siege  of  Breda 
took  place  in  1590,  and  it  is  clear  that  Chetwood's 
information  with  regard  to  Studle}T  was  not  very 
accurate,  for  the  latter  is  described  as  having  boon 
educated  at  Oxford,  and  only  two  of  his  translations 
are  mentioned. 

Studley's  translations  of  Seneca's  Agamemnon 
and  Medea  both  appeared  in  1566,  though  it  is  clear 
that  Agamemnon  must  have  preceded  Medea  by 
some  months.  The  introductory  verses  and  dedica- 
tion prefixed  to  Agamemnon  show  that  this  was,  as 
Studley  terms  it,  "The  fyrst  frutes"  of  his  "good 
will  and  trauaile."  Thomas  Nuce,  Thomas  Delapeend, 
W.  R.,  H.  C,  and  the  other  writers  who  contribute 
prefatory  verses  to  the  translation,  all  implore  the 
reader's  indulgence  on  account  of  Studley's  youth 
and  inexperience.  Apparently  Agamemnon  was 
favourably  received,  for  the  introductory  matter 
prefixed  to  Medea  is  much  shorter,  and  in  his 
"  Preface  to  the  Reader  "  Studley  says  "  If  I  had  not 
gentle  Reader  a  better  truste  in  thy  gentlenesse, 
then    affyaunce    in    myne    own    weakenesse,   I    had 


i  The   British    Theatre.    Containing   the    Lives    of    the    English 
Dramatic  Poets  (1750),  p.  7. 

33 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

not  assayed  thys  second  attempte,  to  bewraye  my 
rudenesse  and  ignoraunce  unto  thy  skilfull  iudge- 
mente."  Both  Agamemnoyi  and  Medea  were  entered 
to  Thomas  Colwell  the  printer  in  the  Stationers' 
Register  for  the  year  July  1565— July  1566,  but  the 
mention  of  Medea  occurs  seventy  entries  after  that 
of  Agamemnon. 

The  title  of  Agamemnon  runs  thus : — 

The  Eyght  Tragedie  of  Seneca.  Entituled  Agamemnon. 
Translated  out  of  Latin  in  to  English,  by  Iohn  Studley,  Student 
in  Trinitie  Colledge  in  Cambridge.  Imprinted  at  London  in 
Fletestreat,  beneath  the  Conduit,  at  the  signe  of  S.  Iohn 
Euangelyst,  by  Thomas  Colwell.     Anno  Domini,  M.  D.  LXVI. 

The  volume  is  a  small  octavo  with  the  collation 
<T,  A4,  B— G8.  The  first  twenty-four  pages  are 
occupied  by  commendatory  verses  in  Latin  and 
English,  by  Thomas  Newce  (or  Nuce),  W.  R.,  H.  C, 
Thomas  Delapeend,  W.  Parkar,  and  T.  B.  These  are 
followed  by  a  dedication  to  Sir  William  Cecil,  and  a 
preface  to  the  reader.  The  text  occupies  ninety-six 
pages,  and  is  followed  by  a  list  of  errata. 

In  the  edition  of  1581  Agamemnon  occupies  the 
eighth  place  among  the  translations.  All  the  intro- 
ductory matter  is  omitted,  and  a  short  Argument  in 
prose  takes  its  place.  The  text  is  evidently  reprinted 
from  that  of  the  1566  edition.  A  few  misprints  have 
been  corrected,  but  others  have  been  introduced,  and 
there  is  no  change  of  any  inrportance. 

Medea  appeared  as  a  small  octavo  volume,  similar 
in  size  to  Agamemnon.     The  title-page  runs  thus  : — 

The  seuenth  Tragedie  of  Seneca,  Entituled  Medea:  Translated 
out  of  Latin  into  English,  by  Iohn  Studley,  Student  in  Trinitie 
Colledge  in  Cambridge.  Imprinted  at  London  in  Fleetestreate, 
beneth  the  Conduit,  at  the  Signe  of  Sainct  Iohn  Euangelist,  by 
Thomas  Colwell.     Anno  Domini  M.  D.  LXVI. 

34 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

The  volume  has  the  collation  [A4]  B— G\  The 
first  eight  pages  are  occupied  by  the  title,  the  dedica- 
tion to  the  Earl  of  Bedford,  the  preface  to  the  reader,, 
a  poem  by  W.  F.  "  in  the  Translatours  behalfe,"  the 
argument  (in  verse),  and  the  list  of  dramatis  personcc. 
The  text  occupies  ninety-five  pages,  and  the  last  page 
is  occupied  by  a  wood-cut. 

In  the  Tenne  Tragedies  of  1581  Medea  has  the 
seventh  place.  The  text  is  the  same  as  that  of 
the  1566  edition,  save  for  unimportant  variants  in 
spelling  and  punctuation,  with  the  solitary  exception 
of  Act  II,  1.  43,  which  has  "it  redresse  "  for  "remedye 
it  "  of  the  earlier  edition. 

Studley  also  translated  Seneca's  Hippohjtus  and 
Hercules  CEta>us,  and  his  versions  of  these  plays 
occupy  the  fourth  and  tenth  places  respectively  in 
the  Tenne  Tragedies  of  1581.  No  separate  edition  of 
either  translation  is  extant,  but  it  seems  probable 
that  such  existed,  as  in  the  case  of  Agamemnon  and 
Medea ;  and  there  are  entries  in  the  Stationers' 
Register  which  lend  colour  to  such  a  supposition. 
The  second  entry  for  the  year  July  1566 — July  1567 
runs  thus — 

"  Recevycl  of  henry  Denham  for  his  lycence  for  the  pryntinge 
of  a  boke  intituled  the  IXth  and  Xth  tragide  of  Lucious  Anneus 
[Seneca]  oute  of  the  laten  into  englisshe  by  T  W  fellowe  of 
Pembrek  Hall  in  Chambryge." 

We  know  that  "the  IXthtragide,"  i.e.  Octavia,  was 
translated  by  T.  N.,  and  was  published  by  Henry 
Denham  in  quarto.  Copies  of  this  quarto  exist  in  the 
British  Museum  and  the  Bodleian  Library,  but  they 
are  undated.  This  version  was  reprinted  in  the  1581 
collected  edition  of  the  Tenne  Tragedies,  where  it  was 
ascribed   to   Thomas   Nuce,  at   one   time   Fellow   of 

35 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge.  No  other  Elizabethan 
translation  of  the  Oct  a  via  is  extant. 

It  seems  probable  that  T.  W.  in  the  Stationers' 
Register  is  a  mistake  for  T.  N.,  and  that  this  entry 
refers  to  a  contemplated  issue  of  Octavia,  and  of 
Hercules  Q^tceus — the  latter  being  generally  known 
as  the  tenth  tragedy  of  Seneca.  The  title  of  Here. 
CEt.  in  the  1581  edition  states  that  it  was  "translated 
out  of  Latin  into  Englishe  by  I.  S.";  and  the  list  at 
the  beginning  of  the  volume  ascribes  it,  together 
with  Hippolytus,  Medea,  and  Agamem)io)i,  to  John 
Studley.  We  know  from  Nuce's  commendatory 
verses  prefixed  to  Studley 's  Again,  that  the  two  men 
were  on  friendly  terms,  and  the  translations  may 
both  have  been  entered  as  his  by  mistake.  In  1570 
"the  iij  parte  of  Hercules  Oote  "  was  entered  in  the 
Stationers'  Register  to  Thomas  Colwell,  who  had 
printed  Agam.  and  Medea  for  Studley.  Does  this 
imply  that  Colwell  had  in  some  way  interfered  with 
the  printing  of  Here.  CEt.  by  Denham,  and  is  the 
mention  of  the  "third  part"  an  indication  that  this 
was  the  third  of  Seneca's  tragedies  which  Colwell 
published?1 

No  separate  edition  of  HippoJytus  is  extant. 
There  is  an  entry  in  the  Stationers'  Register,  July 
1566-7,  considerably  later  in  the  year  than  the  entry 
of  the  "  IXth  and  Xth  Tragedie,"  which  runs  :  "  Recevyd 
of  henry  Denham  for  his  lycense  for  ye  pyrntinge  of 
the  iiijth  parte  Seneca  Workes."  Hippolytus  is  de- 
scribed in  the  1581  quarto  as  "  The  fourth  and  most 
ruthful  tragedy  of  L.  Annseus  Seneca,"  and  it  seems 
probable  that  this  entry  refers  to  an  early  edition  of 
the  translation,  especially  as  for  Aug.  31,  1579  we  find 

l  For  this  suggestion  I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  W.  W.  Greg. 
36 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

the  following  entry :  "  Ric.  Jones.  John  Charlwood. 
Allowed  unto  them  by  the  consent  of  henry 
Denham  these  copies  folowing  which  they  bought  of 
him.  The  Arbor  of  Amytye.  Turberville's  songes 
and  sonnettes.     The  fourthe  Tragedie  of  Seneca." 

If  these  surmises  are  correct  as  to  the  identity  of 
Here.  CEt.  and  Hipp,  with  the  works  entered  in  the 
Stationers'  Register,  Studley's  four  translations 
must  have  been  published  within  a  short  time  of 
each  other.  This  inference  is  strengthened  by  their 
similarities  in  style  and  diction,  Avhilst  it  is  inter- 
esting to  observe  the  development  in  Studley's  use 
of  the  fourteener.  In  the  later  plays  there  is  an 
increasing  number  of  lines  in  which  the  fourth  foot 
ends  in  the  middle  of  a  word,  so  that  it  is  impossible 
for  the  caesura  to  retain  its  normal  place,  e.g. 

Bryng  in  your  scratting  pawes  a  bur-  i 
uyng  brande  of  deadly  fyre. 

{Medea  (1566),  Blv.) 

Agamemnon  has  7  such  lines  out  of  a  total  of  1148 
fourteeners,  Medea  10  out  of  1257,  Hercules  (Etcrus 
36  out  of  1688,  and  Hippohjtus  37  out  of  1271. 

Studley's  poetical  style  differs  widely  from  that 
of  Heywood.  The  diction  of  his  four  translations  is 
extremely  interesting  ;  there  is  a  homely  and  popular 
character  about  it  which  is  quite  foreign  to  Hey- 
wood's,  though  we  find  it  again  in  some  measure  in 
Newton's  Thebais.  His  dramatic  powers  and  sense 
of  poetic  fitness  do  not  seem  to  have  been  of  a  high 
order.     He   often   falls   into    bathos   exactly   in    the 


i  So  printed  in  the  1566  edition,  which  always  divides  the  four- 
teener  into  two  lines  of  print,  generally  at  the  end  of  the  fourth 
foot.  When  that  foot  ends  in  the  middle  of  a  word,  in  some  cases 
as  here  the  word  is  divided,  in  others  the  division  takes  place  after 
the  word. 

37 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

passages  where  he  wishes  to  be  impressive ;  in  fact, 
his  translations  offer  more  examples  of  bathos  than 
any  of  the  others  included  in  the  Tenne  Tragedies. 

It  is  difficult  to  make  a  selection  where  the  choice 
is  so  wide,  but  the  following  lines  may  be  quoted 
from  Cassandra's  vision  of  the  murder  of  Agamem- 
non (T.  T.,  156a,  15—26.     Ag.,  F  7V-) : 

The  King  in  gorgyous  royall  robes  on  chayre  of  State  cloth  sit, 
And  pranckt  with  pryde  of  Pryams  pomp  of  whom  he  conquerd  it. 
Put  of  this  hostile  weede,  to  him  (the  Queene,  his  Wyfe  gan  say,) 
And  of  thy  louing  Lady  wrought  weare  rather  thys  aray. 
This  garment  knit.     It  makes  mee  loth,  that  shiuering  heere  I 

stande. 
O  shall  a  King  be  murthered,  by  a  banisht  wretches  hande  ? 
Out,  shall  Th' adulterer  destroy  the  husbande  of  the  Wyfe? 
The  dreadfull  destinies  approcht,  the  foode  that  last  in  lyfe 
He  tasted  of  before  his  death,  theyr  maysters  bloud  shall  see, 
The  gubs  of  bloude  downe  dropping  on  the  wynde  shall  powrcd 

bee. 
By  traytrous    tricke    of    trapping    weede  his   death  is  brought 

about, 
Which  being  put  upon  his  heade  his  handes  coulde  not  get  out. 

After  an  interview  with  Jason,  Medea  is  made  to  say: 

What  is  he  slily  slypt  and  gon?  falles  out  the  matter  so?   • 

0  Iason  dost  thou  sneake  away,  not  hauing  minde  of  mee, 
Nor  of  those  former  great  good  turnes  that  I  haue  done  for  thee  ? 

T.  T.,  131a,  24—26.     Medea,  E3v. 

Hercules  when  recalling  his  former  prowess  exclaims  : 

1  that  returnde  from  dennes  of  death,  and  Stigian  stream e  defycd 
And  ferryed  ouer  Lethes  lake,  and  dragd  up,  chaind,  and  tyde 
The  tryple  headded  mastiffe  hownd,  when  Tytans  teeme  did  start 
So  at  the  ougly  sight  that  he  fel  almost  from  his  cart. 

Here.  (EL,  T.  T.,  206a,  7—10. 

It  seems  unkind  to  dwell  on  Studley's  poetical  fail- 
ings. He  is  certainly  no  great  poet,  but  occasionally 
he  has  some  fine  lines.  In  the  last  scene  of  the 
Hippolytus  the  Chorus  says  {Hipp.,  T.  T.,  74  b,  27): 

O  Theseus  to  thy  plaint  eternall  tyme  is  graunted  thee, 

38 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

and   there  is  pathos  in  Theseus'  cry  over  the  dead 
body  of  his  son  : 

Lo  I  enioy  my  fathers  gift,  O  solitarinesse. 

Such  lines  however  are  rare,  and  the  chief  attrac- 
tions of  Studley's  verse  seem  to  he  its  quaintness 
and  its  exuberance.  Both  these  qualities  have  been 
exemplified  in  the  quotations  already  given,  but  one 
quotation  more  may  be  adduced,  from  the  description 
of  Medea  practising  her  magic  arts  : 

She  mumbling  coniures  up  by  names  of  ills  the  rable  rout, 
In  hugger  mugger  cowched  long,  kept  close,  vnserched  out : 
All  pestlent  plagues  she  calles  upon,  what  euer  Libie  lande, 
In  frothy  boyling  stream  doth  worke,  or  muddy  belching  sande 
What  tearing  torrents  Taurus  breedes,  with  snowes  unthawed  stii 
Where  winter  flawes,  and  hory  frost  knit  hard  the  craggy  hill, 
She  layes  her  crossing  hands  upon  each  monstrous  coniurde  thing, 
And  ouer  it  her  magicke  verse  with  charming  doth  she  sing  : 
A  mowsie,  rowsie,  rusty  route  with  cancred  Scales  Iclad 
From  musty,  fusty,  dusty  dens  where  lurked  long  they  had 
Doe  craull.  .   .   . 

T.  T.,  133a,  9—19,  Medea,  E  7v  ,  8. 

With  regard  to  Studley's  treatment  of  his  original, 
it  may  be  noted  that  in  no  play  has  he  made  such 
extensive  alterations  as  were  effected  by  Heywood  in 
the  Troas,  N*4iilst  on  the  other  hand  he  nowhere 
follows  the  Latin  as  closely  as  Heywood  does  in  the 
Hercules   Furen&ZS  His   chief  additions   of  original 

/matter  are  in  Medea  (T.  T.,  121a,  1— 122a,  9),  wheL    / 
he  substitutes  a  Chorus  of  his  own  for  the  SenecaA    \~ 

\Chorus;  in  Agamemnon  (T.T.,  159b,  17— 160b,  20)\ 
where  he  adds  a  speech  by  Eurybates  in  which  the 
death  of  Cassandra,  the  flight  of  Orestes,  and  the 
imprisonment  of  Electra  are  narrated ;  and  in 
Hippolytus  (T.  T.,  73b,  15 — 31),  where  he  introduces  a 
curious  passage  in  which  Phaedra  implores  the  spirit 
of  Hippolytus  to  take  her  living  body  in  exchange  for 
his  own  mutilated  corpse. 

39 


ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS     FROM     SENECA. 

In  general,  Studley  follows  the  meaning   of  the 

Latin  fairly  closely,  but  docs  not   try  to   reproduce 

the  Latin  order  as  Heywood  does,  and  he  frequently 

expands,    and    explains    wherever    he    considers    it 

necessary,  e.g.,  where    Seneca   makes  Medea  say  of 

Jason : 

merita  contempsit  mea 
qui  scelere  flammas  viderat  vinci  et  mare'? 

Studley  has  {T.  T.,  122a,  16—23,  Medea,  b  5-,  6) : 

0  hath  he  such  a  stony  heart,  that  doth  no  more  esteeme, 
The  great  good  turnes,  and  benefits  that  I  imployde  on  him  ? 
Who  knowes  that  I  have  lewdly  used  enchauntments  for  his  sake, 
The  rigour  rough,  and  stormy  rage,  of  swelling  Seas  to  slake. 
The  grunting  firy  foming  Bulles,  whose  smoking  guts  were  stuft, 
With  smoltring  fumes,  that  from  theyr  Iawes,  and  nosthrils  out 

they  puft. 

1  stopt  their  gnashing  mounching  mouths,  I  quencht  their  burning 

breath, 
And  vapors  hot  of  stewing  paunch,  that  els  had  wrought  his  death. 

In  one  or  two  cases  it  seems  evident  that  Studley 
has  mistranslated  the  Latin  through  haste  or  care- 
lessness, e.g.,  in  T.  T.,  149a,  3,  4,  Ag.,  d4,  he  translates 
Seneca's — 

tu  pande  vivat  coniugis  frater  mei 
et  pande  teneat  quas  soror  sedes  mea 

Declare  if  that  my  brothers  wyfe  enioy  the  vytall  ayre 
And  tel  me  to  what  kind  of  Coast  my  sister  doth  repayre. 

In  Here.  (Et.,  T.  T.,  202a,  13— 

Nocens  videri  qui  petit  mortem  cupit 

is  represented  by — 

He  doth  condemne  himselfe  to  dye  that  needes  will  guylty  seeme. 


40 


V. 

NUCE'S     OCT  AVI  A. 

Thomas  Nuce,  or  Newce,  as  his  name  is  sometimes 
spelt,  was  educated  at  Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge. 
He  graduated  B.A.  in  1561,  M.A.  in  1565,  B.D.  in  1572.* 
The  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biog.  states  that  in  1562  he  was  a 
Fellow  of  Pembroke,  and  that  some  time  after  1563 
he  became*  rector  of  Cley,  Norfolk.  In  course  of  time 
he  was  appointed  to  several  other  livings,  all  of  them 
in  Norfolk  and  Suffolk,  and  from  February  158f  till 
his  death  he  was  a  Prebend  of  Ely  Cathedral.  He 
died  in  1617,  and  was  buried  in  Gazeley  Church. 

Nuce  contributed  fourteen  Latin  hexameters  and 
a  hundred  and  seventy-two  lines  of  English  verse  in 
praise  of  Studley's  version  of  the  Agamemnon  (1566). 
He  himself  published  a  translation  of  the  Octavia,  of 
which  the  title  runs  thus : 

The  ninth  Tragedie  of  Lucius  Anneus  Seneca,  called  Octauia, 
Translated  out  of  Latine  into  English,  by  T.  N.  Student  in  Cam- 
bridge.    Imprinted  at  London,  by  Henry  Denham. 

The  volume  is  a  small  quarto,  with  the  collation 
A4  (a  1  wanting),  B — G4,  one  leaf  unsigned  ('?  A 1).  The 
translation  is  preceded  by  a  dedicatory  epistle  "To  the 
Right  Honorable,  the  Lorde  Robert  Dudley,  Earle  of 
Lecester,"  which  begins  "After  that  I  had  waded,  right 
honorable,  in  the  translating  of  this  Tragedy  called 
Octauia,  written  first  in  Latine  by  that  notable  and 
sententious  Poet  Seneca"  and  describes  the  transla- 
tion as  a  "smal  combrous  trifle"  and  as  the  "rude  and 


i  For  this  information  I  am  indebted  to  J.  N.  Keynes,  D.Sc, 
Registrary  of  the  University  of  Cambridge. 

41 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

vnsauorie  first  fruits  of  my  yong  study/'  This  is 
followed  by  a  short  and  modest  preface  "  To  the 
Reader,"  and  by  a  rhymed  "argument"  of  the  play; 
and  a  list  of  dramatis  persona?.  The  translation 
occupies  49  pages,  and  is  followed  by  a  list  of  errata. 
The  colophon,  like  the  title-page,  gives  no  indication 
as  to  date.1 

The  only  evidence  which  we  possess  with  regard 
to  the  date  of  this  edition  is  an  entry  in  the 
Stationers'  Register  for  the  year  July  1566 — July 
1567,  which  has  already  heen  mentioned  in  the 
chapter  on  Studley's  translations.     It  runs  thus : 

Recevyd  of  henry  Denham  for  his  lycence  for  the  pryntinge  of 
a  boke  intituled  the  IXth  and  Xth  tragide  of  Lucious  Anneus  [Seneca] 
onte  of  the  laten  into  englisshe  by  T  W  fellowe  of  Pembrek  Hall 
in  Chambryge. 

The  Octavia  was  always  known  as  the  ninth 
tragedy  of  Seneca,  and  T  Wis  probably  a  misprint 
for  T.  N.,  the  initials  which  stand  on  the  title-page 
of  the  Octavia,  and  which  are  explained  in  the  1581 
edition  as  representing  T.  Nuce.  An  explanation  of 
the  "  Xth  tragide "  mentioned  in  the  entry  has 
already  been  suggested.  Hence  this  translation  may 
be  assigned  with  some  probability  to  1566-7.  I  have 
been  unable  to  find  any  foundation  for  the  con- 
jectural date  1561  assigned  to  it  in  the  article  on 
Nuce  in  the  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biog.;  and  as  in  the  same 
article  the  date  of  Studley's  Agamemnon  (1566)  is 
wrongly  given  as  1561,  it  seems  probable  that  in 
Nuce's  case  also  1561  is  merely  a  slip  for  1566,  the 
year  assigned  to  the  Octavia  by  Warton,  who  is  one 
of  the  authorities  mentioned  at  the  close  of  the 
article. 

i  The  copy  here  described  is  that  in  the  British  Museum, 
C.  34,  e.  48. 

42 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

The  Octavia  occupied  the  ninth  place  in  the 
collected  edition  of  1581.  The  text  is  the  same  as 
that  of  the  earlier  edition.  The  Argument  is 
retained,  but  the  dedicatory  epistle  and  the  preface 
to  the  reader  are  omitted.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that 
the  black-letter  type  used  in  the  Octavia  is  larger 
and  clearer  than  that  of  the  other  plays  in  the 
volume. 

The  Octavia  is  an  interesting  play,  both  for  its 
metre  and  language.  Unlike  the  rest  of  the  Tenne 
Tragedies,  it  does^  not  employ  the  fourteener  at_all._ 
Nuce  apparently  perceived  that  theTourteener  was  by 
no  means  an  ideal  metre  for  tragedy,  and  he  had  the 
courage  to  discard  it,  and  to  use  in  its  place  the 
five-foot  or  decasyllabic  line  rhyming  in  couplets, 
occasionall^iiTtrlplets,  and  the  octosyllable  rhyming 
altejaiafely-  In  Nuce's  hands,  as  in  those  6T~6ther 
Elizabethans,  the  decasyllabic  couplet  produces  a 
totally  different  effect  from  the  '  heroic  couplet '  of 
Dryden  and  Pope,  though  it  is  identically  the  same 
in  structure,  except  that  it  has  no  regular  pause  at 
the  close  of  the  couplet.  A  passage  from  T.  T.,  162  b, 
5 — 17,  Oct.,  Blv,  2  will  illustrate  Nuce's  use  of  this 
metre : 

Lo  see  of  late  the  great  and  mighty  stocke, 
By  lurking  Fortunes  sodayne  forced  knocke, 
Of  Claudius  quite  subuert  and  cleane  extinct : 
Tofore,  who  held  the  world  in  his  precinct ; 
The  Brittayne  Ocean  coast  that  long  was  free, 
He  raid  at  wil,  and  made  it  to  agree, 
Their  Romaine  Gallies  great  for  to  embrace. 
Lo,  he  that  Tanais  people  first  did  chase, 
And  Seas  unknowen  to  any  Romayne  wight 
With  lusty  sheering  shippes  did  overdight, 
And  safe  amid  the  savage  freakes  did  fight, 
And  ruffling  surging  seas  hath  nothing  dread, 
By  cruel  spouses  gilt  doth  lye  all  dead. 

43 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TEANSLATIONS 

The  following  passage  illustrates  Nuce's  use  of 
the  octosyllable  (T.  T.,  171a,  1—8,  Oct.  Dl*) : 

The  flasshing  fiawes  do  flappe  her  face, 
And  on  her  speaking  mouth  do  beate, 
Anone  shee  shakes  a  certayne  space, 
Depressed  downe  with  surges  great : 
Anone  shee  fleetes  on  weltring  brim, 
And  pattes  them  of  with  tender  handes 
Through  faynting  feare  then  taught  to  swim 
Approaching  death,  and  fates  withstandes. 

Nuce's  language,  as  will  he  seen  from  these 
extracts,  differs  somewhat  both  from  Heywood's 
and  from  Studley's.  It  has  fewer  Latinisms  than 
Heywood's,  and  is  slightly  less  colloquial  and  more 
archaic  than  Studley's.  Nuce  has  a  partiality  for 
archaic  words  like  '  freake,'  and  'make'  (meaning 
'  spouse  '),  which  the  other  translators  neglect,  and 
he  employs  very  largely  the  prefix  y-  before  the  past 
participle  and  sometimes  before  other  parts  of  the 
verb. 

Nuce  follows  the  Latin  fairly  closely,  though  he 
makes  no  attempt  to  reproduce  the  Latin  order,  as 
Heywood  does  in  the  Hercules  Furens.  He  has  no 
additions  of  original  matter  of  any  length,  and  he 
does  not  abridge  or  alter  the  choruses,  as  Neville 
does.  The  opening  lines  of  the  play  may  be  taken  as 
an  example  of  his  method  of  translation  : 

Now  that  Aurore  with  glitteryng  streames, 
The  glading  starres  from  skye  doth  chase, 
Syr  Phoebus  pert,  with  spouting  beames, 
From  dewy  neast  doth  mount  apace : 
And  with  his  cheerefull  lookes  doth  yeeld, 
Unto  the  world  a  gladsome  day. 

T.  T.,  161b,  1—6,  Oct.,  Bl. 

44 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

The  Latin  is : 

lam  vaga  caelo  sidera  fulgens 
Aurora  fugat, 

surgit  Titan  radiante  coma 
mundoque  diem  reddit  clarum. 

Occasionally,  however,  Nuce  deals  with  his 
original  much  more  freely,  e.g.,  T.  T.,  174a,  21,  22, 
Oct.,  D  4v : 

Ner.     If  that  I  were  a  meacocke  or  a  slouch 

Each  stubborne,  clubbish  claw  would  make  mee  couch. 
Sen.     And  whom  they  hate,  with  force  they  overquell, 

which  represents  the  Latin  : 

Ner.     Calcat  iacentem  vulgus.     Sen.     Iuvisum  opprimit. 


45 


VI. 

NEWTON'S   THEBAIS,  AND   THE   TENNE 
TRAGEDIES. 

Thomas  Newton,  the  editor  of  the  1581  edition 
of  the  Tenne  Tragedies,  and  the  translator  of  the 
Thebais,  was  born  about  1542,  and  went  to  Trinity 
College,  Oxford,  which  he  left  for  a  time  to  study  at 
Queens'  College,  Cambridge, l  though  he  afterwards 
returned  to  his  old  college  at  Oxford.  About  1583  he 
became  rector  of  Little  Ilford,  Essex.  He  wrote 
books  on  historical,  medical,  and  theological  subjects, 
and  made  several  translations  from  Latin.  He  trans- 
lated the  Thebais  in  order  to  make  the  1581  volume 
complete.  It  is  somewhat  difficult  to  judge  of  his 
poetical  powers  from  this  play,  since  he  undertook 
it  from  necessity  and  not  from  choice.  It  is  no 
wonder  that  the  other  translators  of  Seneca  had  let 
it  alone,  for  it  is  not  a  single  complete  play,  but 
consists,  apparently,  of  two  fragments  of  plays  on 
the  CEdipus  legend  —  the  first  fragment  being  an 
intolerably  wearisome  dialogue  between  CEdipus  and 
Antigone,  in  which  CEdipus  expresses  his  determin- 
ation to  die  and  Antigone  dissuades  him,  whilst  the 
second  deals  with  the  strife  between  the  two  sons  of 
CEdipus,    and    Jocasta's    efforts    to    reconcile    them. 

i  There  is  no  entry  in  the  University  records  to  show  that 
Newton  took  any  degree  at  Cambridge.  According  to  Anthony  a 
Wood,  he  became  so  much  renowned,  whilst  at  Cambridge,  for  his 
Latin  poetry,  that  "  he  was  numbered  by  scholars  of  his  time  among 
the  most  noted  poets  in  that  language." 

46 


ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS     FROM     SENECA. 

The  dialogue  between  (Eclipus  and  Antigone  occupies 
in  Seneca  about  three  hundred  and  twenty  lines, 
which  Newton  expands  into  five  hundred,  all  in  the 
fourteener  measure.  The  weary  reader  can  only 
wish  that  CEdipus,  who  is  continually  announcing 
that  he  means  to  kill  himself  by  some  horrible  death, 
would  really  put  his  intentions  into  practice  instead 
of  describing  so  minutely  the  tortures  he  wishes  to 
inflict  on  himself,  or  dwelling  with  such  insistence 
on  the  crimes  he  has  unwittingly  committed,  which 
render  him  worthy  of  death  in  his  own  eyes. 

It  was  impossible  for  Newton  to  make  much  of 
such  dramatically  unpromising  material  without 
cutting  it  down  mercilessly,  but  he  does  not  seem 
to  have  felt  that  his  original  needed  compression. 
On  the  contrary,  he  has  a  tendency  to  expand  the 
Latin  considerably,  and  to  insert  explanatory 
remarks  which,  though  useful  doubtless  to  the  reader 
unlearned  in  classical  story,  scarcely  add  to  the 
dramatic  effect.  He  is  not  a  slavish  translator  by 
any  means ;  his  rendering  is  often  very  free,  but 
unfortunately  he  never  seems  to  have  noticed  that 
his  original  needed  not  expansion  but  compression. 
Two  examples  will  illustrate  this.  Seneca  makes 
CEdipus  say  : 

quantulum  liac  egi  manu? 
non  video  noxae  conscium  nostrae  diem, 
sed  videor. 

Newton  expands  this  to  the  following  (T.  T.,  41a, 
11— 1G) : 

Alas,  what  litle  triffling  tricke  hath  hitherto  bene  wrought 
By  these  my  hands ?  what  f  eate  of  worth  or  maistry  have  I  sought '? 
Indeede,  they  have  me  helpt  to  pull  myne  eyes  out  of  my  head  : 
So  that  ne  Sunne,  ne  Moone  I  see,  but  life  in  darknesse  lead. 
And  though  that  I  can  nothing  see,  yet  is  my  guilt  and  cryme 
Both  seene  and  knowne,  and  poyncted  at,  (woe  worth  the  cursed 
tyme). 

47 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

Again  Seneca  lias  (11.  40—43) : 

sequor,  sequor,  iani  parce.     sanguineum  gerens 
insigne  regni  Laius  rapti  furit ; 
en  ecce,  inanes  manibus  infestis  petit 
foditque  vultus.     nata,  genitorem  vides? 

which  Newton  expands  thus  (T.  T.,  41  b,  37— 42a,  6) : 

0  Father  myne  I  come,  I  come,  now  father  ceasse  thy  rage  : 

1  know  (alas)  how  I  abus'd  my  Fathers  hoary  age  : 

Who  had  to  name  King  Laius  :  how  hee  doth  fret  and  frye 
To  see  such  lewd  disparagement :  and  none  to  blame  but  I. 
Wherby  the  Crowne  usurped  is,  and  he  by  murther  slayne 
And  Bastardly  incestuous  broode  in  Kingly  throne  remayne. 
And  loe,  dost  thou  not  playnly  see,  how  he  my  panting  Ghost 
With  raking  pawes  doth  hale  and  pull,  which  grieves  my  conscience 

most '? 
Dost  thou  not  see  how  he  my  face  bescratcheth  tyrant  wyse? 
Tel  mee  (my  Daughter)  hast  thou  seene  Ghostes  in  such  griesly 

guyse  ? 

Newton's  language  has  considerable  affinity  with 
that  used  by  Studley.  It  has  a  distinctly  colloquial 
character  in  many  places,  is  less  dignified  than 
Heywood's,  and  prefers  native  words  to  Latinisms. 
A  striking  example  of  Newton's  employment  of 
colloquialisms  may  be  found  in  Polynices'  speech 
in  Act  IV  (T.  T.,  53a,  25—38) : 

But  tell  mee  whyther  shall  I  go '?    Assigne  mee  to  some  place  : 
Bylike,  you  would  that  brother  myne  should  still  with  shamelesse 

face 
Possesse  my  stately  Pallaces,  and  reuell  in  his  ruffe, 
And  I  thereat  to  holde  my  peace,  and  not  a  whit  to  snuffe, 
But  like  a  Countrey  Morue  to  dwell  in  some  poore  thatched  Cot  : 
Allow  mee  poore  Exyle  such  one :  I  rest  content,  God  wot. 
You  know,  such  Noddyes  as  I  am,  are  woont  to  make  exchaung 
Of  Kingdomes,  for  poore  thatched  Cots,  beelike  this  is  not  straung. 
Yea  more  :  I,  matcht  now  to  a  Wyfe  of  noble  ligne  and  race 
Shall  like  a  seely  Dottipoll  live  there  in  seruile  case, 
At  becke  and  checke  of  queenely  Wyfe,  and  like  a  kitchen  drudge 
Shall  at  Adrastus  lordly  heeles,  (my  Wyues  owne  Father)  trudge. 
From  Princely  Port  to  tumble  downe  into  poore  seruile  state, 
Is  greatest  griefe  that  may  betyde  by  doome  of  frouncing  fate. 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

Newton  speaks  very  modestly  of  his  own  transla- 
tion in  the  letter  of  dedication  to  Sir  Thomas 
Henneage  which  he  prefixed  to  the  whole  volume. 
After  mentioning  Henneage's  generosity  and  love  of 
learning,  he  goes  on  to  say — 

And  yet  (all  this  notwithstandinge)  well  durst  I  not  haue  geuen 
the  aduenture  to  approach  your  presence,  vpon  trust  of  any 
singularity,  that  in  this  Booke  hath  vnskilfully  dropped  out  of 
myne  owne  penne,  but  that  I  hoped  the  perfection  of  others 
artiflciall  workmaship,  that  haue  trauayled  herein  aswell  as  my 
selfe  should  somewhat  couer  my  nakednesse  and  purchase 
my  pardon.  And  hard  were  the  dealing,  if  in  payment  of  a  good 
rounde  gubbe  of  Gold  of  full  wayght  and  poyse,  one  poore  peece 
somewhat  clypped  and  lighter  then  his  fellowes  may  not  be 
foysted  in  among  the  rest,  and  passe  in  pay  for  currant  coigne. 
Theirs  I  know  to  be  deliuered  with  singuler  dexterity  :  myne, 
I  confesse  to  be  an  vnflidge  nestling,  vnhable  to  flye  :  an  vnnatural 
abortion,  and  an  vnperfect  Embryon  :  neyther  throughlye  laboured 
at  Aristophanes  and  Cleanthes  candle,  neither  yet  exactly  waighed 
in  Critolaus  his  precise  ballauce.  Yet  this  dare  I  saye,  I  haue 
deliuered  myne  Authors  meaning  with  as  much  perspicuity,  as 
so  meane  a  Scholler,  out  of  so  meane  a  stoare,  in  so  smal  a  time, 
and  vpon  so  short  a  warning  was  well  able  to  perform  e. 

The  Tenne  Tragedies  of  Seneca  appeared  in  1581 
under  Newton's  editorship.     The  title  runs  thus  :— 

Seneca  His  Tenne  Tragedies,  Translated  into  Englysh.  Mercu  rij 
n  a  trices,  horce.  Imprinted  at  London  in  Fleetstreete  neere  vnto 
Saincte  Dunstans  church  by  Thomas  Marsh.     1581. 

The  volume  is  a  quarto  in  eights  with  the  colla- 
tion A--4B — Ees  Ff3.  It  opens  with  a  dedicatory 
epistle  by  Newton  to  "the  Right  Worshipful,  Sir 
Thomas  Henneage  Knight,  Treasurer  of  Her 
Maiesties  Chamber."  This  is  followed  by  a  list  of 
the  Tragedies  and  the  names  of  their  translators. 
The  text  occupies  438  pages,1  and  on  the  last  page 


i  The  foliation  begins  with  the  text  on  Bl.  Nos.  64,  6o  occur 
twice  in  the  foliation,  so  that  there  appear  to  be  only  217  ff .  instead 
of  219. 

49 


ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS     FROM     SENECA. 

there  is  a  motto  from  Ovid  "  Omne  genus  scripti 
gravitate  Tragedia  vincit,"  followed  by  the  colophon. 
The  plays  are  arranged  in  the  traditional  order, 
beginning  with  Hercules  Furens,  and  ending  with 
Hercules  (Etccus. 


•50 


VII. 

METRE. 

The  metre  of  these  Elizabethan  translations  is  an 
interesting,  but  hardly  an  inspiring,  subject.  The 
period  in  which  they  were  written  was  the  quarter 
of  a  century  between  Surrey  and  Spenser,  when 
poets  were  busy  practising  the  lesson  of  order  and 
regularity  in  metre,  and  were  not  as  yet  sufficiently 
masters  of  their  craft  to  try  experiments  in  it. 

The  staple  metre  used  by  the  translators  is  the 
fourteener,  and  most  of  them  handle  it  with 
monotonous  regularity.  The  caesura  generally 
occurs  after  the  fourth  foot,  and  the  break  in  the  line 
is  so  marked  that  the  printers  of  the  octavo  editions 
regularly  make  a  division  there,  and  print  the 
fourteener  in  two  parts,  the  first  containing  four 
feet  and  the  latter  three.1  Any  passage  taken  at 
random  from    Studley's   translations   shows   clearly 


i  When,  as  sometimes  happens,  the  fourth  foot  ends  in  the 
middle  of  a  word,  the  printers  generally  divide  the  word,  as  in  the 
following  example  from  Studley's  Agamemnon — 

The  ruthfull  ruin  of  our  na- 
tyue  countrey  we  beheld. 

Ag.,  E5,  T.  T.,  152a,  26. 

but  occasionally  the  division  takes  place  after  the  word,  as  in 

Now  peepes  she  vp  agayn,  with  drouping 
eyes  sonke  in  her  head. 

Ag.,  F4,   T.   T.,  15b,  22. 
51 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

the  (lunger  of  flatness  and  monotony  to  which  such 
verse  was  subject: 

With  belowinges,  &  yellynges  lowd, 

the  shores  do  grunt  and  grone, 
The  craggye  clyues,  &  roryng  rockes, 

do  howle  in  hollow  stone. 
The  bublyng  waters  swelles  vpreard 

before  the  wrastling  winde, 
When  suddenlye  the  lowryng  lyght 

of  moone  is  hid  and  blynde. 
The  glymsyng  starres  do  go  to  glade, 

the  surgyng  seas  are  tost 
Euen  to  the  skyes,  among  the  clowdes 

the  lyght  of  heauen  is  lost. 

More  nyghtes  in  one  compacted  are, 

wyth  shadow  dym  and  blacke, 
One  shade  vppon  another  doth  ■ 

more  darknes  heape  and  packe, 
And  euery  sparke  of  lyght  consumd 

the  waues  and  skyes  do  mete, 
The  ruflyng  wynds  range  on  the  seas, 

through  euerye  coast  they  flytt. 
They  heaue  it  vy  wyth  vyolence, 

ouerturnd  from  bottom  low, 
The  westerne  wynde  flat  in  the  face 

of  easterne  wynd  doth  blow. 

Ag.,  D7,  T.  7'.,  150a.  4—15. 

Heyw7ood  and  Newton  try  to  vary  the  extreme 
monotony  of  such  verse  by  frequently  making  the 
main  pause  in  the  sense  occur  elsewhere,  so  that 
the  logical  and  metrical  caesuras  may  not  coincide. 
This  leads  to  frequent  enjambement,  as  in  the 
following  passage  by  Newton : 

Apollo  by  his  Oracle  pronounced  sentence  dyre 
Upon  mee  being  yet  vnborne,  that  I  unto  my  Syre 
Should  beastly  parricide  commit  :  and  thereupon  was  I 
Condemned  straight  by  Fathers  doome.     My  Feete  were  by 

and  by 
Launcde    through,    &    through  with   yron   Pins :    hangde  was    I 

by  the  Heeles 
Upon  a  Tree  :  my  swelling  plants  the  printe  thereof  yet  feeles. 

Thrb.,   T.  T.,  45b,  39— 46a,  4. 

52 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

The  versification  of  Neville's  CEdipus  is  more 
nearly  akin  to  that  of  the  period  before  Wyatt  and 
Surrey,  when  the  number  of  syllables  and  even  of 
feet  was  of  little  account  to  the  poet,  and  accent 
could  be  shifted  at  will.  The  metrical  chaos  of  the 
first  edition  of  CEdipus  has  already  been  illustrated 
in  the  extracts  given  in  Chap.  Ill,  but  even  in  the 
revised  form  in  which  the  play  appeared  in  1581  such 
lines  occur  as — 

What  colour  it  wants,  or  what  it  hath,  to  me  is  like  vncertayne. 
Now  is  it  black,  now  blue,  now  red,  and  euen  now  agayne 
Quight  out  it  is. 

T.   T.,  84a,  5—7. 

or— 

Be  sure  his  lyfe,  and  death,  and  all,  be  quight  exempt   from 

mysery : 
Ere  thou  do  once  presume  to  say  :  this  man  is  blest  and  happy. 

T.   1\,  92b,  32,  33. 

Iii  the  latter  example  the  unaccented  syllables  of 
'  mysery '  and  '  happy '  are  allowed  to  constitute  a 
rime. 

ANALYSIS   OF   THE   METRE   OF   THE    TENNE   TRAGEDIES. 

The  metre  used  in  the  non-choric  portions  of  the 
translations  (with  the  exception  of  Nuce's  Octavia) 
is  the  fourteen-syllable  iambic  line,  or  fourteener, 
sometimes  called  septenary.  The  only  exceptions  of 
any  length  are  the  following  :— 

Scene  between  Hecuba  and  Chorus. 

Troas,  T.  T.,  99a,  17— 100b,  20. 
Speech  of  Andromache  to  Astyauax. 

Troas,   T.  T.,   111b,  12— 112a,  20. 

Soliloquy  of  Thyestes.                           Thy.,  T.  T.,  36a,  6— 36b,  26. 

Speech  of  Achilles.                        Troas,  T.  T.,  101b,  19— 103  a,  21. 

Soliloquy  of  Iole.                    Here.  (Et.,   T.  T.,  191a,  22— 192a,  10. 

Of  these  the  first  three  passages  are  in  decasyllabic 
lines  riming  alternately,  the  fourth  is  in  rime  royal, 

53 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

and  the  fifth  in  the  mixed  fourteen ers  and  alex- 
andrines, sometimes  known  as  poulter's  measure. 
In  Nuce's  Octavia  the  decasyllabic  couplet,  and 
octosyllabics  riming  alternately  are  used  instead  of 
the  fourteener  throughout  the  non-choric  portions. 
In  the  Choruses  the  following  metres  are  used  : 

1.  Fourteener.  Hipp.,  T.  T.,  66a,  1— 67a,  27. 

Medea,  T.  T.,  131b,  13— 132b,  26. 

Ag.,  T.  T.,  155a,  19— 155b,  40. 

Here.  (Kt..   T.  T.,  211a,  15— 212a,  21. 

Throughout  the  Choruses  of  Neville's  (Edipus. 

2.  Alexandrine.  Ag.,  T.  T.,  142a,  10— 143a,  8. 

ibid.,    147a,  16— 148b,  4. 

3.  Poulter's  measure  (alternate  fourteeners  and  alexandrines). 

Here.   (Et.,   T.  T.,  204a,  3— 205a,  20. 

4.  Decasyllabic  iambic  lines,  arranged 
(a)  with  alternate  rime. 

Throughout  the  Choruses  of  Hey  wood's  Thyestes,  and 
Hercules  Parens  (except  at  the  close  of  Act  III.),  and 
Studley's  Medea  (except  the  passage  in  fourteeners 
mentioned  above). 

Also  Hipp.  T.  T.,  60  a,  S— 61b,  22,  69  b,  16— 70  a,  23. 

Troas,  T.  T.,  100b,  21— 101b,  18. 

Here.   (Et.,   T.  T.,  189b,  29— 191a,  21. 

(i)  in  six-line  stanzas,  riming  a  babe c. 

Hipp.,  T.  T.,  72b.  1— 73a,  12. 
Here.  (Et.,  T.  T.,  197a,  20— 199a,  36,  217a,  23— 217b,  5.  i 

(c)  in  seven-line  stanzas,  riming  ababbec  (rime  royal). 

Troas,  T.  T.,  106b,  1— 107b,  16,  116a,  6— 117a,  10. 

5.  Octosyllabic  iambic  lines,  riming  alternately. 

Here.  Fur.,   T.  T.,   14a,  1—20. 

Troas,   T.  T.,  113b,  11—26.  2 

Oct.,  T.  T.,  169a,  1— 171b,  26,  182a,  13— 182b,  13. 

Occasionally  single  short  lines  occur  at  the  end  of 


i  These  lines  are  preceded  by  a  ten-line  stanza  in  which  the 
rimes  are  arranged  ababbebedd. 

2  Here  it  is  printed  in  long  lines  of  sixteen  syllables. 

54 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

a  scene,  e.g.  Hipp.,  T.  T.,  57  a,  3,  75  a,  24;  Thy.,  T.  T., 
36  b,  26. 

Neville's  CEdipus,  especially  in  the  1563  edition, 
offers  numerous  examples  of  short  unriming  lines  in 
the  middle  of  a  scene,  e.g.  Act  I,  1.  33. 

A  few  of  these  remain  in  the  1581  edition,  e.g. 
T.  T.,  92b,  10;   94b,  3.. 


55 


VIII. 

GRAMMAR. 

The  inflexions  found  in  these  translations  of 
Seneca  are,  in  the  main,  those  common  to  other 
early  Elizabethan  works. 

Verbs. 

The  verbal  forms  are  the   most   interesting,  and 
among  them  the  following  deserve  special  notice : — 
Pres.   ind. 

2nd pers.  sing.  The  usual  form  is  the  normal  one 
in  -est,  -st,  but  there  are  several  examples  of  the 
Northern  form  in  -s,  e.g. 

Thou  beares  as  big  and  boystrous  brawnes  as  Hercules. 

Hipp.,  T.  T.,  67  a,   1.  1. 

O  double  dealing  life,  thou  clokes  deceiptful  thoughtes  in  brest. 

Hipp.,  T.  T.,  69a,  1. 

Let  not  thy  grief e  be  greater  then  the  sorrow  thou  sustaynes. 

Here.  (Et.,  T.  T.,  195b,  5. 

Thou   God  that   sits  in  Seate  on  high,  and   all   the    world   dost 
guide.  (Ed.,  B  4v,  T.  T.,  S2b,  6. 

Thou,  that  in  Lacidoemon  dwelles,  and  honorst  Castors  grace. 

Theb.,  T.  T.,  43  b,  35. 

3rd  pers.  sing.  The  forms  in  -s  and  -th  are  used 
indifferently,  e.g. 

Euboea  that  doth  rise, 
With  hauty  crest  ringes  euery where,  and  Caphar  rocke  likewyse 
Deuydeth  Hellesponus  sea  and  turnes  that  side  to  south. 

Here.  (Et.,  T.  T.,  200b,  12—14. 

As  chaunce  allots,  so  falles  it  out  :  this  dome  abydeth  free. 

Theb.,  T.  T.,  53b,  38. 

56 


ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS     FROM     SENECA. 

3rd  pers.  plar.     In  the  majority  of  cases  this  has 
the  usual  uninflected  form,  e.g. 

The   ruflyng   wynds    range   on  the   seas, 

through   euerye   coast  they  flytt. 
They  heaue  it  up  with  vyolence. 

Ag.,  D7,   T.  T.,  150a,  13,  14. 

All  the  translators,  however,  have  examples  of  the 
form  in  -s.  In  some  cases  this  may  be  due  to  the 
necessities  of  rime,  e.g. 

I  do  aduise  you  to  beware,  beware  (I  say)  of  kynges, 
(A  kyndred  in  whose  cancred  hartes  olde  pryuy  grudges  spryngcs.) 

Ag.  F2,   T.  T.,  154  a,  7,  8. 
Hangde  was  I  by  ye  Heeles 
Upon  a  Tree :  my  swelling  plants  the  printe  thereof  yet  feeles. 

Theb.,  T.T.,  46a,  3,  4. 

See  also  Theb.,  T.  T.,  46b,  5,  ib.  50a,  25,  ib.  52a,  30;  Here. 

(Et.,  T.  T.,  191a,  25. 

There   are,   however,   a   considerable    number    of 

examples  for  which  no  such  reason  can  be  given,  e.g. 

What  secrets  daughter  deare 
Unknowen,  makes  you  to  look  so  drouselye? 

Oct.,  F2v.   T.  T.,  180b,  8,  9. 

And  blustring  winds  and   [T.   T.  of]   daungers  depe  setts  Death 
before  theyr  eyes.  (Ed.,  D8V-  T.  T.,  91a,  4. 

In  some  cases  the  form  in  -s  is  used  when  the  subject 
consists  of  two  singular  nouns  united  by  'and',  e.g. 

Lo,  both  the  fruites,  that  vice  and  virtue  giues. 

Here.   (Et.,   T.  T.,  217b,  5. 

And    it   and  heat    together   makes,  great   straunge,   and    ruddy, 
bumps.  '  (Ed.,  Blv,    T.  T.,  81a,  27. 

There  are  a  few  examples  in  which  '  is  '  and  '  was '  are 
used  with  plural  subjects,  e.g. 

Wherwyth  my  golden  crispen  lockes  is  wonted  to  be  crounde. 

Medea,  E4v,    T.  T.,  131b,  6. 
Such  plagues  and  vengeance  is  at  hande. 

Medea,  E  7,   T.  T.,  132b,  2. 

.     .     .     those  Nimphes  that  wonted  was  to  staye  The  shyppes. 

Medea,  Dlv,    T.  T.,  127a,  27. 

57 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

All  the  translators  also  offer  examples  of  the  use  of 
the  form  in  -th  in  the  3rd  pers.  pi.,  e.g. 

Whose  songes  the  woodes  hath  drawen. 

Troas,  B3,  T.  T.,  101a,  9. 

But  loe  two  shynyng  Sunnes  at  once  in  heauen  appereth  bryght. 

Ag.,  P2,  T.  T.,  154a,  3'. 
What  sharpe  assaultes  of  cruell  Cupydes  flame 
Wyth  gyddie  liede  thus  tosseth  to  and  froe, 
Thys  bedlem  wyght. 

Medea,  F  8,   T.  T.,  136a,  22—24, 

Nor  hansome  houses  pleaseth  him. 

Hipp.,  T.  T.,  59a,  11, 

Those  wordes  through  all  my  lims,  hath  stifnesse  spred. 

Oct.,  G2v,    T.   T.,  184b,  6. 

And  clottred  lumps  of  flesh  the  place  doth  strow. 

(Ed.,  E4v,    T.   1\,  92b,  9. 

The  misteries  whereof  the  hearers  understandeth  not. 

Theb.,   T.   T.,  43b,  30. 

In  some  passages  forms  both  in  -s  and  -th  are  used 
with  a  plural  subject,  e.g. 

Some  from  the  highest  mowntaynes  top,  aloofe  beholdeth  all 
Some  scale  the  buyldings  hallfe  yburnte,  and  some  the  ruynous 

wall ; 
Ye   [T.  T.,  yea]   some  there  werre  (O  mischief e  loe)  that  for  the 

more  despyght, 
The  tombe  of  Hector  sitts  upon,  beholders  of  the  sight. 

Troas,  Pi,   T.   T.,   117b,  8— 11. 

or — 

The  roring  seas  doth  drown  their  voyce  and  cares  [T.  T.,  caryes] 
their  cries  awaye. 

Ag.,  E  lv.    T.  T.,  151a,  8. 

The  3rd  pers.  pi.  in  -n  is  also  found,  though  rarely, 

e.g. 

Except  they  shed  her  blood  before  they  gone. 

Troas,  A  6,   T.  T.,  97b,  5. 

By   al  my  Countrey  Gods   that   bene   in   Temples  closely  kept 
[1563,  close  I  kept] . 

T.   T.,  82b,  35,  (Ed.,  B5v- 

.     .     .     these  Mates  ben  meetst  of  all 
For  me. 

(Ed.,  F2,  T.  T.,  94b,  14. 

58 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

Pres.  sitbj. 

2nd  per s.  sing.  In  one  passage  'arre'  is  used  for 
'  be ' : 

Thou  Gods  (though  tierce  and  valiant)  perforce  dost  chase,  and 

farre 
Dost  ouermatch   in    length   of   limmes,   though   yet   but   young 

thou  arre. 

Hipp.,  T.   T.,  66b,  39,  40. 

Pret.  ind. 

Weak  forms  sometimes  occur  in  the  preterite  of 

strong  verbs,  e.g. 

Feare  shaMe  of  rest 
From  me. 

Oct.,  F3v.,  T.   T.,  181b,  9,   10. 

He  shyned  biasing  brim. 

Here.   (Et.,   T.   T.,  199b,   17. 

A  few  archaic  or  dialectal  forms  occur,  e.g.  '  yode ' 
(O.  E.  eode)  for  'went': 

Of  mates  with  hir  to  sea  that  yode. 

Oct.,  Dlv,    T.   T.,  171a,  14. 

'mought'  (M.  E.  mohte,  a  variant  for  mihte,  mahte, 
formed  perhaps  on  the  analogy  of  dohte,  another 
pret.  present  verb)  for  '  might ' : 

And  for  the  nones  my  hawty  hart,  and  Princely  courage  stout 
I  did  abate,  that  humbly  thee  with  teares  entreate  I  moiight. 

Hipp.,   T.   T.,  64d,i     31,  32. 

Other  forms  now  obsolete  are  fiang  =  fiung  (Hipp., 
T.  T.,  71b,  36),  stacks  stuck  {Med.,  F4v,  T.  T.,  135a,  1), 
molt  =  melted  (Here.  (Et.,  T.  T.,  199a,  20,  21). 

Past  part. 

The  archaic  prefix  y-  (O.  E.  'ge-)  is  used  several 
times  by  Studley,  only  twice  by  Heywood,  three 
times   by   Neville,   once    by   Newton,   and   very  fre- 


i  In  the  foliation  of  the  Tenne  Trag.,  Nos.  64  and  65  appear 
twice.  I  have  denoted  the  recto  and  verso  of  the  latter  pair  by 
c  and  d  respectively. 

59 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TKAN'SLATIONS 

quently  by  Nuce,  who,  as  has  been  noticed  elsewhere, 
has  a  love  for  archaic  forms. 
Two  examples  will  suffice  : 

Some  scale  the  buylclings  halfe  yburnte. 

Troas,  Fl,  T.  T.,  117  b,  9. 
And  griesly  goast  to  graue  with  Torche  yborne. 

Oct.,  olf  T.  T.,  166a,  6. 

This  y-  is  sometimes  erroneously  used  with  other 

parts  of  the  verb,  e.g. 

And  sterne  Erinnis  in  with  deadly  steps, 
To  Claudius  Court,  all  desert  left  yleps. 

Oct.,  B4v.  T.   T.,   165b,  23,  24. 

Whose  roring    sownd,    and    craking    noise    the    lesser    woods 
I  charmes.  (Ed.,  03v,   T.  T.,  85b,  18. 

Weak  past  participles  often  omit  -ed,  if  the  stem  of 
the  verb  ends  in  t  or  d,  e.g. 

Thy  fall  hath  lift  thee  higher  up. 

Troas,  e  3v,  T.  T.,  114  b,  8. 

You  Aares  haue  yeld  a  clattryng  noyse. 

Medea,  F5v.  T.  T.,  135a,  22. 

Danie  Iuno  hath  transport  the  elves. 

Here.   (Et.,  T.  T.,  189a,  27. 

There  are  a  few  examples  in  which  -ed  is  omitted, 
though  the  stem  does  not  end  in  t  or  d.  In  this  case 
it  will  generally  be  found  that  the  word  following 
begins  with  t  or  d,  e.g. 

.     .     .     if  that  among  you  any  are 
Constrayne  to  shed  your  streaming  teares. 

Here.  (Et.,  T.  T.,  216a,  14,  15. 

We  sometimes  find  -n  omitted  in  strong  past  part., 
e.g. 

This  wayward  agony  hath  take  his  perflt  wits  away. 

Here.  (Et.,  T.  T.,  209b,  1. 

.     .     .     nowe  Lycus  loe  the  grownde 
With  groueling  face  hath  smit. 

Here.  Fur.,  I  3,   T.   T.,  14b,  1,  2. 

Which  Grekes  haue  writ  in  registers. 

Ag.,  C4,  T.  T.,  145b,  3. 

60 


OF     SENEGA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

Pret.  forms  in  past  part. 

Occasionally  preterite  forms  are  used  as  past 
participles,  e.g. 

Or  hath  the  tamer  of  the  worlde  and  greekes  renowne  lykewyse, 
Forsooke  the  silent  howse. 

Here.  Fur.,  Gl,  2,   T.  T.,  10  b,  2,  8. 
I  haue  shooke  the  seas.  Herb.  (Ft.,   T.  T.,  195b,  15. 

The  braseen  buclers  being  shoke  did  gyue  a  clattrying  sound. 

Ag.  E  6,  152  b,  18. 
On  thee  that  next  olde  Arcades  in  heauen  thy  seate  hast  tooke. 

Hipp.,   T.  T.,  66  b,  20. 

Nouns. 

There  are  very  few  plural  forms  of  interest. 

Clives     (  =  cliffs.)  Hipp.,  T.  T.,  59b,  1. 

Eyen     (  =  eyes.)  Theb.,  T.  T.,  42  a,  10. 

Grieves     (  =  griefs.)  Theb.,   T.  T.,  45  a,  16. 

Howsen     (=  houses.)  Here.  Fur.,  I  1,  13  b,  1. 

Mischieves     (  =  mischiefs.)  Oct.,  B  2v.  T.  T.,  163  a,  26. 

Clives,  grieves,  and  mischieves  show  the  frequent 
change  of  f  to  v  in  the  plural.  Eyen  (O.  E.  eagan) 
retains  the  O.  E.  suffix  -n,  used  to  form  the  plural  of 
weak  nouns.  Howsen  is  a  new  formation,  found  in 
other  sixteenth-century  writers,1  and  still  existing 
dialectally,  on  the  analogy  of  nouns  like  e}Ten  and 
oxen.  The  plural  form  in  O.  E.  was  hus,  and  in 
M.  E.  houses. 
Adjectives. 

The  double  comparative  is  sometimes  found,  e.g. 
'worser'  (Hipp.,  T.  T.,  58  b,  16),  and  the  double  super- 
lative, e.g.  'most  extreamest '  (Ag.,  c2,  T.  T.,  144b,  16). 
The  form  '  lenger '  ((Ed.,  A  2,  T.  T.,  80b,  24)  for  '  longer' 
represents  0.  E.  lengra,  showing  i-umlaut.2 

i  Cp.  North.  Guevara's  Diall  of  Princes,  194,  a/2.  The  housen 
wherin  they  dwel. 

2  Golding's  translation  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  furnishes  an 
interesting  contemporary  parallel  to  these  Senecan  translations  in 
grammar  and  vocabulary.  Many  of  the  forms  instanced  in  this 
chapter  are  also  to  be  found  in  Golding,  e.g.,  'mought,'  Meta- 
morphoses vi.,  471;  'flang,'  viii.,  551 ;  'molt,'  xiv.,  487;  'take'  as 
past  participle,  v.,  882  ;  '  lenger,'  vi.,  63. 

61 


IX. 

VOCABULARY. 

The  vocabulary  used  in  these  translations  of 
Seneca  is  full  of  interest.  It  varies  to  a  certain 
extent  according  to  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the  dif- 
ferent translators,  Heywood  having  a  partiality  for 
Latinisnis,  Nuce  for  archaisms  of  English  origin, 
Studley  and  Newton  for  colloquial  words  and 
phrases.  On  the  whole,  however,  there  is  a  general 
similarity  in  the  language  of  the  plays  which  make 
up  the  Tenne  Tragedies,  and  it  serves  as  an  excellent 
example  of  the  diction  used  between  1559  and  1567 
by  young  men  of  literary  tastes  and  good  education. 

Certain  words  present  considerable  difficulty,  and 
deserve  special  notice.  Among  these  may  be  men- 
tioned the  following : — 

'  Marble '  is  used  repeatedly  by  Studley  as  an 
epithet  to  be  applied  to  the  sea  or  sky,  e.g.  Hipp. 
T.  T.,  56a,  25,  "Whereas  the  marble  Sea  doth  neete", 
Here.  CEt.,  T.  T.,  192a,  18,  "...  when  marble  skies  no 
filthy  fog  doth  dim."  Readers  of  Milton^  will  recall 
in  this  connection  the  ' pure  marble  air'  of  Paradise 
Lost,  in,  564.  The  Neiv  Eng.  Diet,  explains  '  marble ' 
in  the  line  just  quoted  from  Milton,  and  in  a  line 
from  Phaer  '  marble-facyd  seas,'  as  meaning  '  smooth 
as  marble,'  and  takes  no  notice  of  the  use  of  the 
word  in  the  Tenne  Tragedies.  A  study  of  the 
passages  in  which  the  word  is  used  by  Studley  and 

62 


ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS     FROM     SENECA. 

Heywood1  leads,  however,  to  a  somewhat  different 
conclusion.  In  Hipp.,  T.  T.,  71a,  19,  we  find  "A 
boasting  Bnll  his  marble  necke  advaimced  hye  that 
bare"  as  the  rendering  of  the  Latin  "Caerulea  taurus 
colla  sublimis  gerens,"  where  '  marble '  represents 
the  Latin  '  caerulea.' 

In  Hipp.,  T.  T.,  73a,  17,  "the  Monstrous  hags  of 
Marble  Seas"  represent  the  "monstra  caerulei  maris" 
of  Seneca. 

Here.  CEt.,  T.  T.,  193a,  8,  has  "The  northern  beare 
to  Marble  seas  shall  stoupe  to  quench  his  thyrst "  as 
the  rendering  of  "Ursa  pontum  sicca  caerulum  bibet." 
In  Heywood's  Here.  Fur.,  c  3,  T.  T.,  3a,  8,  we  find 
"With  marble  hors  now  drawn"  representing  Seneca's 
"iam  caeruleis  evectus  equis."  Apparently  the 
translator  associated  the  idea  of  blueness  with 
marble,  for  in  Hipp.,  T.  T.,  (36b,  30,  "lucebit  Pario 
marmore  clarius  "  is  rendered  by — 

The  Marble  blue  in  quarry  pittes  of  Parius  that  doth  lie, 
Beares  not  so  brave  a  glimsyng  glosse  as  pleasant  seemes  thy  face. 

If  marble  be  taken  as  the  equivalent  of  '  caeruleus '  = 
'  azure,'  '  dark  blue,'  the  force  of  the  epithet  when 
applied  to  sea  or  sky  becomes  clear,  and  Studley's 
predilection  for  it  (he  uses  it  frequently  when  there 
is  no  corresponding  Latin  adjective  at  all)  becomes 
easy  to  understand. 
'  Aleare.' 

O  well  was  I,  when  as  I  lived  a  leare, 
Not  in  the  barren  balkes  of  fallow  land. 

Here.   (Et.,  T.  T.,  190  b,   1,  2. 

I  spoylde  thy  father  Hercules,  this  hand,  this  hand  aleare 
Hath  murdred  him.  Here.  CEt.,  T.  T.,  208a,  37,  38. 


i  It  has  been  pointed  out  tome  that  Donne,  who  was  Heywood's 
nephew,  uses  '  marble '  as  an  epithet  for  the  air  in  his  poem  of 
The  Storm.     1.  14  :   "  th'air's  middle  marble  room." 

63 


THE     ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS 

The  only  example  of  the  word  in  the  New  Eng. 
Diet,  is  the  latter  one  just  quoted  from  Here.  (Et. 
The  New  Eng.  Diet,  explains:  "?  Fated.  ?  chance- 
directed,"  and  suggests  as  a  derivation  :  "  ?  ad  Lat. 
alearis,  meaning  '  belonging  to  dice  '."  This  explana- 
tion does  not  hold  good  for  the  former  passage,  of 
which  no  notice  is  taken  in  the  Neiv  Eng.  Diet. 
There  is  no  corresponding  Latin  word  in  either 
passage — "  felix  incolui  non  steriles  focos,"  "  Hercu- 
lem  eripuit  tibi  haec,  haec  peremit  dextra."  Both 
the  meaning  and  the  origin  of  the  word  are  obscure. 
The  Eng.  Dialect  Diet,  gives  'aleare'  as  a  provincial 
word  used  of  waggons  to  mean  '  empty,  unladen.' 

'  Cloyne '  =  '  steal.' 

.     .     .     for  feare  least  thou  alone 
Should  cloyne  his  Scepter  from  his  hand. 

Here.  (Et.,  T.  T.,  216b,  15,  16. 

'  Feltred '  =  '  matted,'  '  tangled.' 

And  griesly  Plutos  filthie  feltred  denne. 

Oct.,  c  2v,  T.  T.,  167  a,  33. 

'Frounced'  =  'wrinkled,'  'perverse.' 

And  settest  out  a  forhead  fay  re  where  frounced  mynd  doth  rest. 

Hipp.,  T.  T.,  69a,  2. 

Thus  startyng  still  with  frounced  mind  she  waiters  to  and  froe. 

Medea,  D  2,  T.  T.,  127  b,  21. 

The  New  Eng.  Diet,  gives  no  example  of  the 
figurative  use  of  'frounced,'  except  a  nineteenth- 
century  one  from  Saintsbury  in  a  different  sense, 
though  it  mentions  that  'frounce'  is  used  to  mean 
'  to  look  angry,'  which  is  not  quite  the  same  sense  as 
here.  The  transition,  however,  is  easy,  if  such  a 
passage  is  considered  as  Gawaine,  1.  2306,  "  frounces 
bothe  lyppe  and  browe." 

64 


OF     SENECA'S     TRAGEDIES. 

'  Overheel '  =  '  cover  over.' 

.     .     .     the  fielde 
That  all  to  spatterd  lay  with  blond,  and  bones  quight  overheelde. 

(Ed.,  A  5*    T.  T.,  79  b,  21,  22. 

The  New  Eng.  Diet,  gives  no  example  of  the  use  of 
the  word  as  late  as  the  sixteenth  century  except  by 
Scotch  writers. 

'  Plaunch.' 

Alas,  each  part  of  me  with  gnilt  is  plannch  and  overgrowne. 

Theb.,   T.  T.,  44  a,  34. 

The  New  Eng.  Diet,  gives  no  example  of  the  use  of 
'plaunch'  as  an  adjective.  It  explains  the  verb 
'plaunch'  as  'to  cover  with  planks'. 

'  Royle.' 

As    a    verb,  =' roam '    (cf.   Golding,    Metamorph., 

in,  18). 

Let  them  in  solemne  flockes  goe  royle. 

Here.  Fur.,  I  2,   T.  T.,  14  a,  5. 

As  a  noun,  =  'monster'  (?). 

That  ngly  Royle  heere  heates  him  selfe. 

Hipp.,  T.  T.,  71b,  4. 

These  royles,  that  prease  to  worrey  mee. 

Medea,  Go,   T.  T.,  138b,   18. 

The  New  Eng.  Diet,  gives  two  substantives  under 
'  roil  or  royle,'  the  first  meaning  '  an  inferior  or 
spiritless  horse,  a  draught-horse  (of  Flemish  breed), 
or  a  clumsy  or  stoutly-built  female,'  and  the  second 
meaning  'agitation  or  stirring  up  (of  water).'  Neither 
of  these  suits  the  quotations  here  given,  since  that 
from  Hippolytus  refers  to  the  sea-monster  which  a 
few  lines  before  had  been  described  as  a  bull,  and  the 
passage  from  Medea  refers  to  the  Furies. 

Among  Heywood's  Latinisms  the  following  may 
be  noticed : — 

65 


ELIZABETHAN     TRANSLATIONS     FROM     SENECA. 

'  Frete '  or  'freate,'  meaning  'sea'  or  'flood'1  (Lat. 
1  fretum '),  e.g. 

And  freate  that  twyse  with  ebbe  away  dooth  slyppe. 

And  twyse  upflowe.  Here.  Fur.,  D  4,  T.  T.,  6a,  13,  14. 

And  hardened  top  of  frosen  freat  he  troade, 
And  sylent  sea  with  banks  full  dumme  about. 

Here.  Fur.,  P5,  T.  T.,  9a,  12,  13. 
Thou  fearefull  freate  of  fyre     . 
O  Phlegethon.  Thy.,  T.  T.,  39b,  14,  1-5. 

'  Roge,'  meaning  '  funeral  pile '  (Lat.  '  rogus  '),  e.g. 

And  roges  for  kings,  that  high  on  piles  we  reare. 

Troas,  T.  T.,  100  a,  29. 

What  bretherns  double  tents'?  or  what  as  many  roages  also? 
(Latin  :  quid  totidem  rogos '?) 

Here.  Fur.,  E3,   T.  T.,  7a,  19. 

'Impery,'  meaning  'dominion  '  (Lat.  ' imperium '), 

.     .     .     the  auncient  note  and  sygne  of  impery. 

T.   T.,  24  b,  20. 

and  also  meaning  a  'command,'  e.g.  "  at  ease  he  doothe 
myne  imperies  fulfyll"  (Lat.  "laetusimperia  excipit") 
(Here.  Fur.,  B  5,  T.  T.,  lb,  32). 

'  Stadie,'  meaning  '  a  race-course,'  '  stadium,'  e.g. 
"  Renowned  stadies  to  my  youth "  (Lat.  "  celebrata 
inveni  stadia")  (T.  T.,  27b,  6). 

A  fuller  list  of  the  more  unusual  words  employed 
in  the  Tenne  Tragedies  will  be  found  in  the 
Appendix. 


i  The  New  Eng.  Diet,  gives  only  '  strait '  as  the  meaning  of 
'frete',  but  its  use  here  seems  to  be  wider,  and  to  correspond  to 
the  use  of  '  fretum '  in  Latin  poetry  to  mean  not  merely  '  strait ' 
but  '  sea  ' . 


66 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


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LATIN. 
Senecae  Tragoediae.     Venetiis  in  iEdibus  Aldi  et  Andreae  Soceri. 

MDXVII. 

L.  Annei   Senecae   Gordubensis   Tragoediae.     Basileae  apud   Henri- 
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L.  Annei  Senecae  Cordubensis  Tragoediae.      Apud   Seb.  Gryphium 

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L.  Annaei  Senecae   Tragoediae.    Recensuit  et  emendavit  Fridericus 
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Ward  (A.  W.)  and  Waller  (A.  R.)  Cambridge  History  of  Eng- 
lish Literature,     Vols.  V.  and  VI.  Cambridge,  1910. 

WARTON  (T.)     History  of  English  Poetry.  London,  1774—81. 

Edited  by  Hazlitt  (W.  C.)         London,  1871. 

WOOD  (Anthony  a).     Athenae  Oxonienses.     Ed.  P.  Bliss. 

London,  1813—20. 


APPENDIX 

A  list  of  the  more  unusual  words  to  be  found  in 
the  Tenne  Tragedies  of  1581. 

This  list  does  not  claim  to  furnish  a  complete  glossary.  The  references 
are  to  the  foliation  of  the  1581  edition.  The  derivations  given  are  for  the 
most  part  based  on  information  found  in  the  New  English  Dictionary  as 
far  as  it  lias  appeared. 

aare  (O.  F.  aire,  L.  ara),  altar.     186  b. 

abandon  (causative  use  of  vb.),  banish,  cause  to  abandon.     58b. 

"Nor... Taurus  mount  whose  hoary  and  frosty  face 
With  numming  cold  abandons  all  inhibitors  the  place." 
AGRISE   (O.  E.  agrisan),  terrify.     66  b,   189. 
alder  (northern  form  of  'older'),  former.     64b,   134b. 
aleare  (see  pp.  63,  64),    etymology   and    meaning   uncertain.     According 

to  N.  E.  D.  not  found  elsewhere.     190b,  203. 
APPEACHE    (represents    an  earlier  *anpeche,    prob.    A.   F.    form    of    O.  F. 

empecbier),  accuse.     65  d. 
appose   (var.  of  oppose),  confront  with  hard  questions.     43b. 
assoyle  (pres.  ind.  and  subj.  of  O.  F.  asoldre),  solve.     79b. 
attach  (O.  F.  atachier),  accuse.     165  b. 

basnet  (O.  F.  bassinet),  steel  head-piece.     51. 

battaylous  (O.  F.  batailleus),  warlike.     175. 

bear  the  bell,  take  the  first  place.     48  b,  65  c,  166  b. 

befrounced   (be  +  frounce  =  wrinkle),  ruffled.     214b.     N.  E.  D.  gives  no 

other  example  of  the  word. 
beray  (be  +  ray,  aphetic  form  of  array),  disfigure.     181,  183. 
bestad    (be  +  stad   and    O.N.    staddr),  beset.      10  b,    160. 
bethwact.     N.  E.  D.  gives  only  bethwack  =  pelt,  thrash.      53  b.        The 

meaning    here   seems   to    be    '  covered.'     "  a  soyle  bethwact  with 

vines." 
bleakish   (bleak  +  ish),  rather  pale.     67.     The  only  example  in  N.  E.  D. 

of  this  use  of  the  word. 
blockam.     Etymology  and  meaning  uncertain.     Not  mentioned  in  N.E.D. 

"  And  some  at  least  to  blockam  Feaste  to  bryng."     198. 
boalne   (prob.  from  O.  E.  bolgen,  past  part,  of  bolgan),  swollen.      196  b, 

2C0. 

70 


APPENDIX. 

bobltng  (onomat.),  babbling.     156b. 

rood   (incorrect  use  of  hood,  preb.  of  hide,  in  the  infinitive),  abide,  147. 
bough  (onomat.),  bark.     155b. 
brasell  (prob.  Spun,  brasil),  hard  wood,  188b. 

bray  (0.  F.  braire),  give  forth.     N.  E.  D.  adds  '  with  a  cry,'  which  does 
not  suit  64,  1.  29. 
"Or    els    among  the  baulmy  flowres  out   braving  fauours   [?  sauours] 

sweete." 
Cf.  56,  11.  12,  3. 

"  where  Zephyrus  most  milde 
Out  brayes  his  baumy  breath  so  sweete." 
brim   (O.  E.  breme),  bright,     180,   192,   199b. 
buffe   (O.  F.    buffe),  buffalo,  wild  ox.     56  b. 
bugge   (prob.   Weslh  bwg),  hobgoblin.     201b,  206b. 
bugle   (O.  F.  bugle),  buffalo,  wild  ox.     56b. 
bum   (deriv.  uncertain),  strike.     64b,  183  b. 
buskle  (freq.  of  busk),  prepare,  shake.     1S9,  192,  212. 
bylbowblades    (from    Bilbao  iu    Spain,    famous    for    its    swords),    shaiqi 
swords.     143  b. 

CHOP  (prob.  rar.  of  chap=buy),  exchange.     161. 

cleaze    (plur.  of    clea,  clee,  which    represents  the  O.  E.  nom.    clen,    cleo, 

as    claw  represents    the    oblique    cases,    clawe,    etc.),    claws,  74b, 

188b,  206b. 
CLERESO.vie   (O.  F.  cler  +  some),  bright,     3.     Not  in   X.  E.  D. 
clotter  (freq.  of  clot),  clot,     69,  92b. 
Clubbisu   (club  +  ish),  clownish.     174. 
CLYP  (O.  E.  clyppan),  embrace.     29b. 
coll  (O.  F.  col),  embrace.     29b,  51. 
con  thanks   (O.  E.  thane  cunnan),  offer  thanks.     47b. 
CONQUEROUS   (conquer  +  ous),  victorious.     180. 

corsey'  (syncopated  form  of  coresive  =  corrosive)   grievance.     193,  206. 
couxtermure   (F.  contremurer),  fortify  with  an  additional  wall.     64b. 
COUXTERPAY'SE   (O.  F.  contrepeser),   counterbalance.     67  b. 
COYLE,  subs,   (deriv.  uncertain),  tumult,     43,   189b,  52b,   183b. 
Coyle,  vb.   (deriv.  uncertain),  beat.     156  b. 

ckake   (var.  of  crack),  boast,     As  subs.   141,   151;  as  vb.   166b. 
CRANKE   (deriv.  uncertain),  vigorous.     201b. 
CRISPEN  (var.  of  crisp,  crisjied),  curled.     62,  64  b,   131b,  204.     This  form 

of  the  word  is  not  mentioned  in  X.  E.  D. 

dankesh,  danky   (deriv.  of  dank),  somewhat  dank.   167,   106  b. 
darraygne   (O.  F.  deraisnier),  contest,  challenge.     46  b. 

71 


APPENDIX. 

DIMILAUNCE  (F.  demie  lance),  light  horseman  armed  with  short  lance. 
1 52. 

i>i\<;tiikyitk  (ding  +  thrift),  spendthrift.     198. 

DISPONSED  (Lat.  desponsare),  betrothed.  152b.  X.  E.  D.  gives  only 
d  espoused,  for  which  this  may  be  a  printer's  error,  though  it 
appears  in  both  editions  of  the  text,  or  it  may  be  a  new  for- 
mation from  the  Latin. 

DISBUMPE   (Lat.  dis-rumpere),  break   up.     177  b. 

distatn  (O.  F.  desteindre),  defile.     42  b. 

doeee  (prob.  O.  N.  dar),  mockery.     85. 

dottipoll  (dote  +  poll),  blockhead.     53. 

dowse  (prob.  onomat.  though  it  may  be  connected  with  douse  =  strike), 
plunge.  74.  N.  E.  D.  gives  no  example  as  early  as  this,  and 
states  that  the  word  appears  c.  1600. 

drake  (O.  E.  draca),  meteor.     66. 

drosel   (deriv.  uncertain),  slut.       168b.       ~N.  E.  D.  gives   the  word    only 
as  subs.,  but  on  f.   145b  it  is  used  as  an  adjective. 
'•  This  drosel  sluggish  ringleader." 

eabxefully  (adv.  from  earneful,  var.  of  yearnful,  from  yearn),  anxiously, 
sorrowfully.     191  b. 

easteeling  (from  easier  [adj.]  +  ling,  prob.  after  Dutch  oosterling),  native 
of  the  east.     188b,  211. 

eftsones,  immediately,  repeatedly.     31,   105. 

EMi'EACH   (Fr.  empecher),  hinder.      43b. 

engeale  (in  +  grave),  entomb.     20. 

enmious  (O.  F.  enemieux),  hostile.     15b. 

ententiue  (O.  F.  ententif),  attentive.     194. 

enteeataxce   (entreat  +  ance),  entreaty.     64c. 

FADGE   (deriv.  uncertain),  fit.     166b. 

feeee  (O.  E.  gefera),  companion,  spouse.     43  b,  etc. 

felteed   (O.  F.  feltrer),  matted.     167. 

fisk  (prob.  frequent  of  O.  E.  fysan),  move  briskly.     192b. 

FITTERS   (deriv.   uncertain),  fragments.     73b. 

flawe  (prob.  O.  E.  *flagu,  corresp.  to  Swed.  flaga),  squall.     69,  167. 

flimflam   (prob.   onomat.),  idle.     137  b. 

flingbeayne   (fliDg  +  brain),  foolish.     47.     Not  as  adj.  in  X.  E.  D. 

flush  (prob.  onomat.),  flutter.     60  b. 

fondling  (fond  =  foolish  +  ling),  fool.     194,  198. 

foeloende  (use  of  forlorn  as  trans,  vb.,  meaning  'lament').     141b. 

fobslow  (O.  E.  for-slawian),  delay.     214. 

feeake  (O.  E.  freca),  man.     162  b,  etc. 

FBEMMD  (O.  E.  fremede),  stranger.     48b. 

72 


APPENDIX. 

frete  (Lat,  fretum),  strait,  sea,  flood.     6,  9,  37  b,  391). 
frounced  (O.  F.  froncier),  wrinkled,  perverse.     (i9. 
frump   (vb.),  mock.     177  b. 

lgent  (Lat.  fulgentem),  glittering.     27b,  66. 
fussten  ftjmes    (f ustian  =  coarse  cloth,  fig.  inflated  language),  display    of 
anger.     153  b. 

GAINER  (compar.  of  O.  N.  gegn),  straighter,  more  direct.     57. 
garbovt.e   (O.  F.  garbouil),  tumult.     47  b,  48. 

o  a  rg  ell,  gargle,  adj.   (O.  F.  gargouille),  monstrous.     60b,   123b,   138b. 
gattex  tree   (O.  E.   gate  treow),  dogwood.     64b. 
gird  (deriv.  uncertain),  thrust.     71b. 

glade  (prob.  Scand.),  setting  (of  sun  or  stars).     66,  161b,   198. 
glede   (O.  E.  glu>d),  light,  fire.     68  b,  71,  etc. 

GLOWM,   glown  (deriv.   uncertain),  frown,  lower,  192b,  210,  217. 
^GLUMMY  (glum  +  y),  dark.     74,   188b,  etc. 
GLT  (deriv.  uncertain),  look  asquint.      188  b. 
GNOFFE   (cf.  E.  Fris.  gnuffig  =  rough),  churl.      198. 
GOAR   (from  gore  [subs.]  =•  blood),  cover  with  blood.     188b. 
gobbet  (O.  F.  gobet),  fragment,  piece  of  flesh.     72,  75. 
greets  (O.  E.  greotan),  weep.     207  b. 
grutch  (O.  F.  groucier),  murmur  at.     177  b. 
gub  (O.  F.  gobe,  goube),  lump,  clot,     72,  175  b,  etc. 
gydon  (O.  F.  guidon),  flag.     49. 

happy,  vb.   (from  happy,  adj.),  make  happy.     115. 

hawsing  (O.  E.  hals),  embracing.     65  c. 

hayting   (hait,  a  word  of  encouragement  to  horses),  crying  'hait!'     167b. 

X.  H.  D.  gives  no  example  of  its  use  as  adj. 
hegge   (var.  of  hag),  evil  spirit,     204b. 
iiellicke   (O.  E.  hel-lic),  infernal.     67b,  73. 
helly   (hell  +  y),  infernal.     5  b,   18. 
hent  (O.  E.  hentan),  seize.     43. 
hoy   (prob.  M.  Dutch  hoci),  sloop.     190. 
hugger  mugger  (deriv.  uncertain),  secret.     58. 
HUGY  (liuge  +  y),  huge.     35,  64b,  etc. 

imp  (O.  E.  impa),  child,  scion.     64d,  209b,   etc. 

impery,  emperie   (O.  F.  emperie,  assimilated  in  the  form  impery  to    Lat, 

imperium),  (1)  domiinon,  2,  24b,  29  b;  (2)  command,  behest,  lb. 

This   latter    use    is    said  to  be  rare  by  N.  E.  D.  which  gives  no 

other  example.  • 

jaunce  (deriv.  uncertain),  make  prance.     199. 
jet   (O.  F.  jeter),  strut,  swagger.     194  b,  198  b. 

73 


APPENDIX. 

jotting  (prob.  onomat.),  jogging.     56b,  72. 
jumpb,  adv.   (from  jump,  vb.),  exactly.     183. 

kakkaym:,  adj.   (var.    of    carrion,    O.   Norm.  F.  caroine),  death-like,  cor- 
rupt.    190,  211b. 
KAYSAR  (Lut.  Caesar),  emperor.     201b. 
KEBEREYES   (a   var.  not  mentioned   in   N.  E.  D.  of  earerie,  var.  of  career). 

63  b. 
kill   (var.   of  Kiln),  funeral  pyre. 

"and  thus  the  forrest  wyde 
Doth  make  the   Kill   [for  Hercules'   burning]."     213,  1.  8. 
"When  up  lie  stept  on  Oeta  mount  and  gazed  on  his  Kill." 

ibid.  1.   13. 
JV.  E.  D.  gives  no  example  of    this    use,  though    the    transition   to  it 
from  the  ordinary  meaning  '  furnace,  oven '  is  easy. 
knappe   (onomat.),  break  in  pieces.     19,  212  b. 
knariue  (M.  E.  knarre),  knotty.     64b,  202b,  213. 

label  (O.  F.  label),  fillet,  ribbon.     64d,  66. 

LACTTJSE  (var.  of  lettuce,  Lat.  lactuea),  sea-weed.     71. 

laeme  (F.  larme),  tear.     216.     Not  in  N.  E.  D. 

launch  (O.  Norm.  F.  lancher),  pierce.     168. 

lauxcixg   (O.  F.  lancier),  darting  forward.     149. 

leame  (O.  E.  leoma),  flash,  ray.     193b,  etc. 

LEEFE,  subs.  (O.  E.  leof),  love,  husband.     167. 

li.mkke   (O.  F.  liemier),  leash-hound,  blood-hound.     56b. 

LiNNK   (O.  E.  linnan),   cease.     44,  201,  210  b. 

litii   (O.  E.  lithe),  calm,  still.     70b. 

lumpe  (and  lower),  vb.  (onomat.),  look  unpleasant.     150. 

lfskish  (vb.  lusk  =  skulk),  sluggish.     57  b. 

mai'd  (aphetic  form  of  amayed  =  dismayed),  dismayed.     103  b. 

MANKINDE,  adj.  masculine,  virago-like.     156b. 

marble,  adj.  (see    pp.    62,  63).      3.  56,  58b,  61,  61,  67b,  68b,  71,  71b, 

73,  192,  193,  193b,  216,   200b. 
meacocke,  meycocke  (deriv.  uncertain),  coward.     45,  151,  174. 
mell  (O.  F.  meller,  mesler),  interfere.     54b. 
mknv  (O.  F.  mesnie),  retinue.     155. 

MICHING,  myche  (prob.  O.  F.  muchier),  skulking.     69,  193  b. 
miser  (Lat.  miser),  wretch  [without  idea  of  avarice].     22,  28,  etc. 
moary    (var.    of    moory,  from    moor),    marshy.       196b,    210.       In    'hoary 

moary  frost,'  133  b,  it  has    probably  no    force  of  its  own,  and  is 

used  only  for  the  jingle. 

74 


APPENDIX. 

home   (deriv.  uncertain),  blockhead.      150b,   198. 
moysted  (from  moist),  moistened.     3(5 h. 
mucky  (X.  E.  muk),  dirty.     190. 

nock,  vb.   (from  nock,  subs.  =  notch),  provide  bow  or  arrows  with  notch. 

147  b,  213. 
note  (ne  +  wot),  know  not.     25. 
nowne  (from  own,  by  mistaken  division  of  myn  own,  thyn  own,  and  used 

afterwards  with  her,  your,  etc.),  own.     174  b. 
NOT,  noiance   (aphetic  foiTtis  of  annoy,  annoyance).     206b,  72  b. 

obit  rytes  (L.  obitus),  funeral  rites.     74b,  149  b. 

OBTayne   (in  Lat.  sense  of  occupy,  possess).     64. 

oixerdight  (over  +  dight),  cover  over.     162b. 

ouerheel  (O.  E.  ofer-helian),   cover   over.      79b,    84b.      X.  E.  D.   gives 

none  but  Scotch  examples  after  1200. 
OUERQUEL    (over  +  quell),    perish,    be    overcome.       152.       N.   E.  D.    gives 

examples  only  of  the  transitive  use  of  the  verb. 
ouerthwart   (over  +  O.  X.  thvert),  across.     151. 

palt  (var.  of  pelt) ,  strike  with  repeated  blows.     191b. 

paebrake,  perbrake   (compound  of  brake  =  vomit),   vomit.     69b,   159b. 

pash   (onomat.),   break  in  pieces.     50,  191  b,  206. 

patch    (possibly  from    fool's    patched  coat,  or  perbaps  from   Ital.  pazzo), 

fool.     174,  177. 
payse,  subs.  (O.  F.  peis),  weight.     21b,  64. 
payse,  vb.   (O.  F.  peser),  weigh,  balance.     17  b,  162b. 
pipling   (dimin.  of  pipe),  whistle.     70b,   134  b. 
placket  (L.  placet),  expression  of  assent  or  sanction.     189  b. 
plump   (deriv.  uncertain),  troop,  flock.     81. 
POYNT  (aphetic  form  of  appoint),  appoint.     22b,  32b. 
prig   (deriv.  uncertain),  steal.     64. 
princocks   (deriv.  uncertain),  coxcomb.     165  b. 
pykes,  pass  the   (F.  passer  les  piques),  run  the  gauntlet.     45. 

QUAIL  (deriv.  uncertain),  impair,  destroy.     44b,  45b. 

QUARELLE   (O.  F.  quarel),  arrow.     56 b. 

quarie  (var.  of  quarelle),  arrow.     190b. 

quaynt  (O.  F.  cointier),  acquaint.     64. 

QUEACHY   (queach  =  thicket,  +  y),  forming  dense  grove  or  thicket.     48, 

quell  (O.  E.  cwellan),  kill.     41b,  69. 

75 


APPENDIX. 

hack  (var.  of  rase,  raze),  scratch.     72. 

rack    (deriv.   uncertain,  prob.  Scand.),  muss  of  cloud.     60b,  196. 

rahatk   (var.  of  rate),  scold.     53  b. 

kami'irk   (O.  F.  rampar;  change  of  vowel  in  second  syllable  unexplained), 

rampart.     4  b,  64  b. 
ramptre,  ramper  (O.  F.  remparer),  fortify.     172b. 
rascal,  adj.  (O.  F.  rascaille),  inferior.     56,  211b. 
rat,    subs.    (prob.    aphetic    form     of     array,     or     perhaps     direct     from 

O.  Norm.  F.  *rei,.0.  F.  roi),  array.     48b,  71b. 
rat,  vb.,  soil.     92  b. 

reaue   (apparently  due  to  confusion  of  reave  =  rob  with  rive),  cleave. 
rector  (Lat.  rector),  ruler,     lib. 

recule  (O.  F.  reculer),  retire,  drive  back.     149b,   190. 
regall,  subs.  (F.  regal),  feast.     64. 
repriue  (var.  of  reprove),  reject.     163. 

retchles,  reachlesse  (O.  E.  recceleas),  careless,  heedless.     70,  74b. 
rexe   (deriv.  uncertain),  merry-making.     156. 

RIG,  ryg   (deriv.  uncertain),   (1)   ransack,  rifle.     92  b.      (2)   romp.     57  b. 
ROGE   (L.  rogus),  funeral  pyre.     7,  99,  100.     The  only  example  in  N.  E.  D. 

dates  from  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
roore   (M.  Du.  roer),  disturbance.     212  b.     N.  E.  D.  gives  the  word  only 

in  the  phrase  in,  on,  or  upon  a  roore. 
rotle,  subs,   (see  p.  65),  ?  monster.     71b,   138b. 
BOYLE,   vb.  (deriv.  uncertain),  roam.     14. 
rotst  (from  roister,  F.  rustre),  swagger.     63. 
ruffe   (deriv.  uncertain),  fury.     59. 
rttndel  (var.  of  roundel),  circle.     175,  176. 
RTrENED  (confusion  of  riven  and  rived),  cloven.     170,   178.     No  mention 

of  this  form  in  N.  E.  D. 

safetinesse   (safety  +  ness) ,  safety. 

"  the  daungerous  quick  Sand 
Shall  promisse  Ships  with  safetinesse  upon  the  shold  to  land."       65. 
Not  in  N.  E.  D. 
sangue  (F.  sang),  blood. 

"  Descended  of  the  royall  Sangue."     46. 
N.  E.  D.  gives  only  "  sang  royal,"  with  no  example  of  the  inversion 
of  the  phrase. 
sheryng  (O.  E.  scieran),  cleaving  [water].     149  b,  162  b. 
shittel  (M.  E.  schityl),  rash,  headlong.     58b,  62. 
shife   (M.  E.  schive,  schife),  splinter.     64  b,  21. 
shog  (var.  of  shock),  shake,  jog.     167  b,  189. 

76 


appendix.        "•.•.•••.:..::    •••:*•.: 

slabbt  (slab  =  mire,  +  y),  wet,  slimy.     71,  189. 
shot  (verbal  subs,  from  smite),  stroke.     160b. 
spang  (O.  E.  gespong),  ornament.     198b. 
spell  (?  O.  N.  spolr),  splinter.     72. 
splay   (apbetic  form  of  display),  display.     102. 
spritish   (sprite +  isb),  ghostly.     170  b. 
spyre   (L.  spirare),  blow.     151. 
stadie  (L.  stadium),  race-course.     27b. 
steaming  (O.  E.  steman),  glaring.     188  b,  201. 
stilting  (?  O.  F.  estiver),  hasty.     148  b. 
stoulpe  (Icel.  stolpi),  post.     68. 

swallowe,  swolue  (M.  E.  swolwe,  gulf,  whirlpool.     70b,  74. 
SWINCKE   (O.  E.  swincan).      The  usual  meaning  of  'toil'  is  not    apparent 
in  this  passage : 

"  In    olde    Assaracks    goblets    gylt   they 
swincke   and    swill    the    wyne."  156. 

tat    (deriv.    uncertain),    let    fall.       No   example  of    this  use  in  Ar.  E.  D. 
"  The  fainting  horse  for  sodayne  paine  from  back  his 
burden  tats."     80b. 
taw  (O.  E.  tawian),  flog.     68. 
thirl   (O.  E.  thyrlian),  pierce.     56  b,  208. 
tiiirl,  thril,  thurl   (deriv.  uncertain),  hurl.      56b,  48b,   192. 
thratling  (var.  of  throttle),  choking.     152. 

TJGSOME,  ougsome   (O.N.  uggr  + some),  frightful.     192b. 
ungrubbed   (uii  +  grub  =  dig),   not  dug.     173 
UNPATSED   (un  +  payse  =  weigh),  unbalanced.     191b. 
fnreky  (un  +  reky  =  moist),  unmoistened.     207  b. 
i'nwayned  (un  +  wayn  =  bring),  not  advanced.     191b. 
L'ke   (O.  F.  cure),  operation,  use.     123,  141  b. 

yer  (O.  F.  ver,  Lat.  ver),  spi'ing.     66. 

virago   (Lat.  virago),  woman  of  great  strength  and  courage  [without  de- 
preciatory force;  here  applied  to  Diana].     56b. 

walme,  wawme  (O.  E.  wselm),  wave,  ripple.     145,  149,  195  b. 
Walter   (freq.  of  wait  =  roll),  roll,  welter.     62b,  81,  etc. 
wambling  (lYI.  E.  wamleu),  rumbling,  heaving.      133,  190b. 
v_^wanny  (wan  +  y),  pale.     66  b,  194.  / 

77 


APPENDIX. 

WArors   (wave  +  ous),  full  of  waves.     43  b. 
WATMENT  (O.  F.  waimenter,  guaimcnter),   lament.     4Sb. 
waynde  (O.  N.  vegna),  brought.     50b,  142b. 

whist,  whisht,  whusht,  vb.  (whist,  interject,  onomat.),  be  silent,  30b,  7, 
18  b. 


78 


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